Connecting The Dots
by cottonmouth
Summary: Set in the FMFC series, nearly two years after ‘Unforeseen’. It seems simple enough: Sam wants it, Dean wants it, everything should just fall into place, right? AU, SamDean slash
1. Chapter 1

Summary – Set in the FMFC series, nearly two years after 'Unforeseen'. It seems simple enough: Sam wants it, Dean wants it, everything should just fall into place, right? AU, SamDean slash

Warnings – Nothing too horrific this time, for once :) Humour, a little bit of angst, but the main warning is for descriptions of male/male sexual acts, which I hope no one reading my stories would be offended by :P

Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly

You like? You don't like? Review and tell me why! (Constructive criticism only please, if you don't like the subject, don't read the story.) If you haven't read the FMFC series yet, you'll probably want to read those first or this won't make much sense…

A/N – Hi, I'm back, and with the story I imagine a lot of you have been waiting for… I know I said that any further stories in this series would probably be one-shots, and to be fair, that was what I started out writing, but then the story just kept on growing until it became four chapters and an epilogue :) So, in honour of Valentine's Day on Saturday, and because I know I really put everyone (myself included) through the wringer with Unforeseen, I will be posting a chapter a day up until Friday :)

Enormous thanks go to my wonderful beta Phx, who prodded me when I needed it and helped me out when I stalled completely :)

Chapter 1

So it'd been nearly two years and Dean thought he was getting pretty good at this whole celibacy deal.

Wake up, take a piss, jerk off in the shower, go deal with whatever case they happened to be working on that day. Get back to the motel room (occasionally covered in blood or guts or pus – on one memorable occasion he was dripping lime-green jello with every step; not something he liked to discuss) take another shower, jerk off again. Go cuddle with Sam while eating take-out and watching whatever crap happened to be on TV that night. Wait for Sam to fall asleep, uncomfortable because he had to lie with his hips twisted around so Sam wouldn't get freaked out by his hard-on. After Sam fell asleep, get up and take care of it in the bathroom, then go back to bed and snuggle. Repeat the cycle the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Sometimes Sam would go off and do his own thing; research, libraries, soulfully watching the sunset and thinking deep thoughts. Then Dean might break out the porn, feeling guilty and shameful, furtively watching the door and hoping Sam wouldn't come back unexpectedly to find him in the middle of giving himself a helping hand.

He had a system in place, a cast-iron plan for when he woke up and just _knew _it was going to be one of those days where his dick just _wouldn't quit_. He'd tell Sam he was going to go pick up something for the Impala, or interview a witness that wouldn't take him seriously if he had a puppy-eyed kid passing himself off as a cop beside him. Sam would smile and nod, wave a hand at the laptop and say he'd stick around the motel room and wait for Dean's call. Then Dean would do something goofy, _totally _embarrass himself by pretending to trip and bash his knee on the desk, or spill something down his shirt, or walk out with toothpaste smears around the corners of his mouth. Nothing obvious, but something that would get Sam's attention, get him to come up close. Then he'd grab the kid, kiss him hard and hot and heavy until Dean's hands were shaking, he was so worked up. Sam would give him an amused half-grin when he finally pulled back, his eyes bright, and Dean would flash his own smile and say he'd better get going.

He'd drive around the block, his jeans so painfully tight and his heart pounding in illicit anticipation, and then he'd pull over, whipping it out and going at it right there on the street, in broad daylight.

So yeah, he thought the enforced celibacy was going pretty well, considering. At least he hadn't been arrested for indecent exposure yet.

*****

Sam's eighteenth birthday had been celebrated with much making-out and a case of German beer Dean had picked up for half price at the gas station across the road. He'd given a seconds' thought to picking up a bunch of flowers, vetoed the idea with a roll of his eyes and a _what am I thinking_, because while this might be the most chaste relationship Dean had ever been in (possibly it was the most chaste relationship in the _history of the world_) but it still didn't make Sam a girl.

Dean was okay with not getting laid. Really, he was. Because Sam had been through so much fucking shit in his short life, and Dean would honest-to-god rather slit his own wrists in a bathtub somewhere than pressure Sam into doing something he wasn't ready for.

So, German beer it was. And maybe a pink cupcake with multi-coloured sprinkles on it, because it made them both laugh, but Dean could see the blush and the happiness on Sam's face when he handed the cake over and sang a purposely off-key rendition of 'happy birthday' while Sam was still dripping wet from his shower.

And if Dean had to get up halfway through their Indiana Jones marathon (Sam had told him the week before that he'd never seen any of the Indiana Jones movies, an utter travesty than Dean had immediately sworn to rectify) and jerk off in the bathroom, the cold faucet running full-blast and the sound of Indy shooting Nazis making the door vibrate on its hinges, then that was just the price he had to pay.

It was _worth it_. More than worth it, because Dean got to come home every night and watch Sam fall asleep, wake up every morning to drowsy slanted fox-eyes and run his hand through Sam's thick soft hair that got stuck in the gummy sleep-stuff which accumulated at the corners of Dean's mouth during the night. Sometimes Sam would find something funny on TV, an old Jerry Lewis/Dean Martin film, and he'd laugh so hard it would literally make Dean's heart break for longing, because he was on the other side of the room and there was a whole bed between the two of them which just _wouldn't do_.

Sam spent a lot of that night watching him, like he was waiting for something, and Dean knew what it was even if he deliberately stayed away from the topic. Sam was legal now. Sam was expecting Dean to get on that.

Dean wasn't going to do anything without having a good long talk about Sam's state of mind and his thoughts and his fears and what he'd feel comfortable with. Which basically meant Dean wasn't going to do _anything_, ever.

The look he got when he sweetly kissed Sam goodnight and rolled over to go to sleep was a mix of bemusement, shock and a pinch of frustration. It almost made up for the _oh-god-I'm-going-to-die _horniness.

*****

Dean's twenty-seventh birthday was going to be special, Sam vowed as he marched into the pharmacy, head held high. It was going to be special, and magical, and wonderful, and all those other things that really meant _Dean was getting laid tonight whether he wanted to or not_.

What Sam couldn't figure out was why the older man was waiting. He was eighteen now, had been for a good few months. And yeah, Sam still had the occasional nightmare where creeping insidious hands groped him, touched him, made him cry out in fear. But those were relegated to dreams. He could walk into a crowded bar without thinking of who might be waiting, who might be looking. His instinctive reaction to someone bumping him from behind wasn't a jerk and a fist.

Gareth didn't haunt him anymore. He'd been exorcised, consigned to hell along with the yellow-eyed demon. Sam was free. Sam was happy. Sam was…a virgin.

Not for much longer.

He strode across the store, sidestepping customers and employees in green uniforms until he spotted it. The sign hung over the far aisle that said 'Family Planning' in comforting green letters. He walked straight up to it.

Turned around fast and pretended to be deeply involved in a shelf of multivitamins as an old lady dragging a wheelie bag behind her wandered out of the 'Holistic Remedies' section.

Two false starts and three customers all apparently desperate for holistic remedies later, and Sam was starting to think the blush would never fade from his cheeks. He had a plastic container of Vitamin C in one hand, a box of Cod Liver Oil supplements in the other, and he could _see _the brightly-coloured Trojans and Durex Ultra boxes from where he was standing, but every time he took a step towards it, someone would turn that damned corner and force him into a swift about-face.

He just needed a plan. A plan that wouldn't tell everyone in the store that _hey, he was buying contraceptives because he was going to lose his virginity to his gay lover tonight_.

So, plan. The first part of the plan should probably involve deciding exactly what type of condoms he wanted, because then he could just walk up and grab them. Moving into the next aisle, he said a brief prayer of thanks for his height, peeking over the top shelf to examine the condoms in the next aisle.

There were a lot of them. Ribbed, sensations, pre-lubricated, flavoured, endurance, warming, ultra-safe, extra-sensitive, featherlight, pleasuremax. Sam bit his lip. Did he want a condom that tasted good? One that warmed up? One that let Dean do him all night long?

Lubrication was probably an issue he should address too. He'd tried using his fingers a few times in the shower, blushing furiously and feeling like an idiot. One finger hadn't been too hard to get in, but two had taken a lot of working and the last of Dean's conditioner.

"Excuse me?"

He jumped at the sudden voice, his face burning scarlet. A young woman with a basket on her arm stood beside him, her eyebrows raised. "Uh, can I…" She waved to the shelf he'd been standing in front of.

"Oh, sure." Sam jumped back, and she leaned forward to pick up a box, shooting him a strange look over her shoulder.

Probably because, Sam realised with a sudden urge to beat his head against the wall, he was standing in the feminine hygiene aisle.

Figuring he had nothing else to lose, he gritted his teeth and marched around to the shelf of condoms. He'd faced off against monsters, demons, spirits, generally the worst evil imaginable. He was going to face the cashier even if embarrassment made his cheeks erupt in flames.

He snatched up a tube of lubricant and an eighteen-pack of pleasuremax condoms; maximum pleasure sounded good, eighteen was probably an optimistic view, but he'd learnt a long time ago that it was better to be prepared for every eventuality.

The cashier gave him a funny look as she scanned his condoms, lube, Vitamin C and Cod Liver Oil supplements. Sam ducked his head and ran.

*****

Buying the supplies was one thing, broaching the subject with Dean was something else. Because Dean seemed quite happy to watch old episodes of _The X-Files_, laughing at the special effects and spitting half-chewed KFC all over the bed sheets. Dean didn't appreciate talk that was anything other than superficial or related to hunting. He'd tolerated Sam's many awkward confessions with uncomfortable pats on the back, hugs, pulled faces that meant he didn't know exactly how to respond but if it made Sam feel better then he was glad Sam was sharing it with him. Once Sam had heard him whispering what could only be described as sweet nothings while he rubbed Sam's bare back in a dark motel room, but Sam was supposed to be asleep, so he kept his eyes closed and made snuffling noises against Dean's chest, suppressing a smile.

Dean offered him a beer with a grunt. Sam picked an opened bottle up, gulping half of it down in one. The pharmacy bag was buried in his duffle on the other side of the room, and Sam thought maybe he should just pull it out and give it to Dean. Maybe strip off his pants and assume the position while Dean was looking through it. Subtle as a bulldozer, so even Dean should get the implications.

It wasn't particularly romantic though, and as much of a girl as it made him, Sam kind of wanted his first time to be _special_.

"Sam? You okay, you look kind of…constipated." Dean said, his eyebrows pulled together. Sam suppressed a sigh. Dean doing romantic was probably a stretch too far.

"I'm fine."

"You sure? You're noteating anything. Look, I bought the spicy chicken thing you like."

"It's KFC, dude. It's _all _spicy chicken." And okay, that was probably sharper than he'd intended, because Dean was looking wounded and holding his hands in the air.

"Hey, what crawled up your ass today? You've been jittery as hell ever since you got back from the library. You find something out about this ghost-girl you're not tellin' me?"

Sam leaned back against the table, shaking his head. "No, nothing like that. Sorry Dean. I'm just…"

Dean scooted forward on the bed until his feet were on the floor. He leaned towards Sam with a concerned expression. "What? What is it? Did something…happen, while you were out?" His face darkened. "Did someone try it on with you?"

Sam's head snapped up. "No! No, it's not that."

"Then what? Dude, you're kinda scarin' me here?"

He clenched his jaw tight, his hands fisting through his hair roughly. He opened his mouth to speak, but how the hell do you just come out with… "Why won't you have sex with me?" He blinked, wide-eyed.

Dean looked just as shell-shocked. "Uh…what?"

Now he'd started, he had to finish, so Sam pressed on, waving his hands vaguely in the air between them. "It's just…I'm eighteen now, man. And I kinda thought that… And you haven't even…"

"Hey, hey, Sam, calm down." Dean jumped up, catching his wrists gently in either hand. He met Sam's eyes, teeth worrying at his lower lip. "Uh, what…what brought all this on?"

"Nothing! I just…I wanna…have sex." Sam ducked his head. Dean continued to look at him, a faint blush colouring his cheeks. "With you." He clarified, in case Dean was wondering.

"Um, okay…" Dean looked about as uncomfortable as Sam felt. "What, right now? 'Cause, we kinda need some…equipment, for…that."

"I've got stuff." Sam lunged ungracefully for his bag, sprawling over the end of the motel bed as he dug through it. His fingers closed around brown paper and he tugged it free, tossing it over to Dean.

The older man looked at him with an expression Sam likened to a rabbit about to be run down by a car. Slowly, he opened the bag, sticking his hand inside and pulling out a box. He stared at it for a second and then stared at Sam, eyebrow raised. "Uh, Sam, I hate to break it to you, but Vitamin C tablets aren't gonna be much use during sex."

Sam blushed. "Uh, no, there's…there's other stuff."

Dean set the bag on the table and started pulling out the contents. "Lubricant, Cod Liver Oil… _Eighteen _condoms?" He shot Sam a look. "How much sex are you expectinghere? 'Cause I don't think I can get it up eighteen times in one night."

"Yeah, uh, that was just…to be prepared. In case."

Dean sucked in a loud breath, turning to face Sam slowly. "Okay, then. So…you really wanna do this? Now? Because…if you're not ready-"

"I'm ready, Dean. Seriously. I want this." Sam said, his mouth set in a determined line.

"Um, you sure you don't want…like, candles and stuff? A nicer motel room?"

"No, really. This is great." There was a cobweb hanging down from the ceiling, and a patch of something suspicious on the carpet in front of the TV; not really _great_, but Sam figured the surroundings wouldn't matter so much once they got going.

"'Cause, I mean, we don't _have _to do it now. We can wait. I mean it, Sam." Dean said, his expression still cataloguing his shell-shocked confusion.

Sam took a deep breath and pushed himself up, stepping into Dean's space. "I _want _this, Dean." His hands shook a little as the settled on Dean's chest, flirting with the buttons running down the front of his shirt.

Dean swallowed visibly, his hands coming up to cover Sam's, stilling them. "Okay. Okay, then. Uh, shall I…shall I turn off the lights?"

Sam grinned, a twitch of lips that he hoped hid his nerves. They were actually going to do this. Finally._ Now_. "Uh, maybe turn off the TV?"

"Oh! Yeah." Dean practically did a _duh _forehead slap, scrambling in the bed covers for the remote. The room was plunged into silence, quiet enough to hear the patter of water running in the next room. Sam stood awkwardly by the table, watching Dean watch him, the both of them clearly completely mystified as to what should happen next.

"Uh, maybe, we…we get undressed?" Sam suggested, feeling stupid.

"Yeah, good idea." Dean nodded furiously, bending to unbutton his jeans. Sam watched for a second as the older man kicked off his pants, hopping on one foot to peel off a sock. His own fingers picked at the waistband of his jeans, sliding closer to the button.

This would be the first time they'd seen each other naked, in an intentional way at least. It was unavoidable, living like they did, _not _to see the other in various states of undress. Dean had an unfortunate tendency to wander into the bathroom half-asleep just as Sam was stepping out of the shower, and Sam was pretty sure he'd walked in on Dean jerking off to porn on the laptop a few times. And there was no point in trying to preserve dignity while bleeding from various cuts and wounds after a hunt. Dean had a very attractive scar on the left cheek of his butt which Sam had had the pleasure of sewing up while Dean was knocked out on morphine. Unfortunately, the morphine had done nothing to slow the digestion of the chilli Dean had eaten for dinner, which meant during the stitching Sam occasionally had to pause and turn his head for a gulp of clean air. Sam wasn't sure which of them had been more embarrassed the next day.

Dean cleared his throat loudly, and Sam looked up to find the older man stripped to his boxers and looking very uncomfortable about it. To hide it Dean attempted one of his snarky grins. "Hey, you didn't say this was a strip show."

"Sorry." Sam blushed, yanking his tee shirt over his head. The drag made his hair staticky, the ends sticking to his forehead.

"Should…should I get in the bed?" Dean asked. "Um, I'll…clear the chicken off first."

"Yeah." Sam mumbled, his suddenly-numb fingers fiddling with the zipper of his jeans.

Dean climbed into bed still wearing his boxers. The covers were pulled up around his neck and Sam watched the older man wriggle, making an _ah-hah! _of triumph as his bare foot poked out at the side, boxers looped around one ankle. He kicked them off and held the corner of the covers open in invitation.

Sam dropped his jeans, stumbling a little as they caught around his ankle in his haste. "Did you, uh, pick up the…stuff?"

Dean waved a hand at the bedside cabinet, where the lube and a single condom lay innocuously.

Sam swallowed, just looking for a second before sucking in a breath and climbing into the bed beside Dean. They'd been sharing a bed for years now, but this felt different, strange in a way Sam hadn't expected. Dean was lying beside him, an uncertain smile on his face, and Sam turned to face him. There was a good ten inches of space between them.

It wasn't exactly how Sam had imagined this going. He'd kind of hoped there would be spontaneous displays of passion, tender looks and gentle hands helping him out of his clothes. But maybe that was just how it went in movies.

"Um, so…" Dean bit his lip, his fingers twitching compulsively on the covers like he wanted to touch but was afraid to reach over the invisible divide.

"So." Sam nodded; at what, he wasn't quite sure, but it felt like he needed to say something, do something.

"How do you…"

"Maybe if I…" They both started, then stopped, blushing wildly at one another.

Dean took a deep breath, glancing down Sam's covered body with an expression Sam had seen on men in war films before they ran to their heroic deaths; one that said _I'm about to crap my pants, but this has to be done_.

Sam raised his eyebrows. He'd expected a certain amount of manly posing from Dean during sex, possibly some impressive muscle-flexing and animalistic grunts of pleasure, while in the heat of the moment his eyes would lock with Sam's and they would see the other's love shining through. Possibly he'd picked up some bad harlequin romance novels to prepare for this moment. But nowhere in any of those books did Sam read anything along the lines of 'his eyes scanned her body and his hand faltered, his face showing his _abject terror_'.

"Dean, are you okay?"

"Yeah." Dean replied quickly, a paste-on smile stretching his lips wider than they should be. "Fine. You?"

Maybe if they just jumped straight into it. Sam lunged forward, pressing his lips to Dean's. Or he _tried_ to press his lips to Dean's, except Dean reared back at the last moment, Sam's pursed mouth colliding with the point of his chin.

"Ow!" Sam clapped a hand to his mouth.

"Oh god, are you okay? Sam? Lemme see." Dean gently pulled the hand away, tilting Sam's head back. "I think your lip's bleeding. Shit. I'm so sorry, man. Fuck, here, you better," he rolled over, grabbing a half-empty paper KFC cup that rattled with ice, "hold that to it." He pressed the side of the cup to Sam's face.

Sam pushed himself upright, sitting back against the headboard with the KFC cup dripping condensation onto his bare chest. A grunt from Dean; Sam turned to see the older man pull a half-eaten chicken wing out from somewhere under the covers, holding it between two fingers with an expression of disgust. This was so _not _how he imagined sex going, and he couldn't hold back the laugh that exploded from deep in his belly, because this? Was ridiculous.

Dean stared at him for a moment before flopping back down on the pillow, his own, _real _smile breaking across his face. "So. Was it everything you'd hoped it would be?"

"Oh yeah." Sam met his eyes, deadpan. "I never knew it could be that way. I can't believe we haven't been doing this all along."

Tucking his hands behind his head, Dean grinned widely. "Well, I _am _hard to resist."

"So, uh, are we gonna…try again?" Sam said, wincing as the words pulled at his sore lip.

Dean's grin faded, his face turning pink. "Dude, uh, I'm…not really in the mood." His eyes darted down his body to the decidedly _not _tented bed sheets covering his crotch.

"You're not in the mood?" Sam looked at him, incredulous. "How are _you _not in the mood? You jerk off like, ten times a day!"

The blush deepened, Dean's eyes going wide as he pushed himself up on his elbows. "You _know _about that?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm with you practically all day, every day, Dean. _No one _needs to pee as many times as you go to the bathroom. Seriously. I thought there was something _wrong_ with you before I figured it out."

The punch Dean aimed at the fleshy part of his upper arm wasn't a surprise. "_Jesus_. I thought…"

"What?" Sam raised his eyebrows. "You thought I wouldn't realise that you've been going without sex for nearly two years? I may be a virgin, Dean, but I'm not stupid. And I'm not a delicate flower either, despite what you might think. You don't need to _protect _me from yourself, or whatever it is you're doing."

"I just…I didn't want to pressure you, or anything."

Sam smiled, poking Dean in the chest. "I know. But it's okay, really. _I'm _okay. Not pressured into anything. I want this just as much as you do."

The other man's eyes fluttered closed, a pout pushing out his lower lip. "Trust me, Sam, no one in the _world _wants this as much as I do."

"So. Let's do it."

Dean lay still for a long moment, before letting out a sigh and pushing himself upright, his face level with Sam's. "No."

"No?" Sam's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "You want to wait _another _two years?"

"No, but," Dean's eyes fell to Sam's lap and his hand slid over to play along Sam's knuckles softly, "I think we shouldn't do it _here_. Seriously, Sam. I don't wantto just…_do _you. It's your first time. It should be something you'll remember."

Sam snorted, waving the hand that wasn't holding the paper cup to his mouth. "You don't think I'll remember this?"

Dean pulled a face. "Something you'll remember for the _right_ reasons. Not something you'll forever associate with the smell of KFC." He pointed at the chicken wing lying beside the lube and condom with a quirk of his lips.

The point was proven a second later when Dean pulled a squashed french fry out from under the pillow. Sam grimaced. "Yeah, okay."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly

You like? You don't like? Review and tell me why! (Constructive criticism only please, if you don't like the subject, don't read the story.) If you haven't read the FMFC series yet, you'll probably want to read those first or this won't make much sense…

A/N – First off, I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed the first chapter of this story; I loved hearing what you thought of it :) As you may have noticed, instead of putting a chapter a day up, I have, in fact, put the whole story up in one. This is because I am an idiot and I forgot that I won't be around to update tomorrow through to Sunday :P So instead of putting the one chapter up tonight and making you guys wait until Sunday, I thought I'd be nice and put the whole thing up :) I hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter 2

The good thing about knowing Sam wanted to have sex: Dean got a _lot _more make-out time.

Seriously. The kid was insatiable; in the car, in the library, standing in the queue for McDonald's, in booths at diner tables waiting for their food to be brought over. And it wasn't like they'd never made out in public places before – not usually where people could _see _them, because Dean wasn't too keen on being labelled a fag by some ignorant redneck wanting to shotgun his ass – but this was a whole new level, and it involved heated looks and wandering hands, bitten kiss-swollen lips, teasing glances. After some trepidation, Dean shrugged and went with it, because he was pretty sure no one in their right mind could resist Sam when he was going for an all-out seduction, and only thanked god they happened to be in San Francisco and not Texas.

Before, Dean had always assumed Sam had no idea what he looked like when he licked grease from the tips of his fingers or sucked on the straw of his milkshake so hard his cheeks hollowed out. Now, those actions were punctuated with smouldering looks under a mop of dark hair, a foot nudging his ankle under the table. The little bastard knew _exactly _what he was doing, and damn if it didn't make Dean bite down on his tongue hard enough to hurt, just to distract him from the desperate need to press Sam up against the nearest hard surface, throw any morals he might have had right out the window.

Unfortunately, thinking about it was as far as it went, because the hunt that'd sprung up was taking every bit of time and effort they had. Dean hadn't forgotten his promise of a memorable first time, and he didn't think falling asleep halfway through would count

Currently they were on stakeout duty, waiting for Missy Leonard, a waitress at Hooters, to finish up for the day and come home to the homicidal spirit of her husband. They still hadn't figured out if she actually _knew _it was her dead husband flaying every guy who looked at her with less-than-pure intentions or if she just thought it was some kind of freaky coincidence. Either way, the itty-bitty uniform her job required meant a lot of San Franciscans were ending up dead and skinless.

Normally, Dean would be all for watching Hooters waitresses for the good of the cause. But unfortunately for both Missy and the nice guy who was walking her home after her shift, Dean was kind of distracted on this particular stakeout. It may have had something to do with Sam's mouth sucking furiously on his collarbone like he was trying to permanently tattoo a hickey into the skin.

So the first they heard of the spirit's reappearance was a howl from the guy as he was pinned to the side of the house, Missy shrieking like a banshee and fluttering her hands uselessly in the air.

It took Dean a second to catch on, and as soon as his vision refocused he was pushing Sam off his lap and stumbling from the car, shotgun held loosely in one hand. He spared a glance back at the kid; Sam was sprawled across the bench seat of the Impala, his shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest, his cheeks and neck flushed and his whole body heaving as he dragged in deep breaths of air. Suppressing a groan, Dean turned away quickly; a boner he _didn't _need right now.

His feet pounded the sidewalk as he ran towards the house, the short breaths behind him telling him Sam had put his ass in gear too.

"Hey!" he yelled, lifting the shotgun level with his shoulder. Missy spun to face him, her coat hanging open and revealing an impressive set of tits, barely contained in a tiny little top. "Get outta the way!"

She didn't listen, dancing around in Dean's line of sight and preventing him from getting a clear shot at the vague grey outline surrounding her screaming friend. There was a red jagged line forming at the guy's throat, slipping slowly downwards and slicing through his tee shirt as it went.

Dean reached Missy as the cut descended to the guy's belly button, shoving her aside with one hand and bringing the shotgun to bear. A squeeze of the trigger, and the amorphous grey shape faded. The guy slid down the wall, landing heavily on his ass, hands flying to the bleeding wound like he could press it back together. The salt round had hit him full on through the spirit, and it probably stung like a bitch in the open cut. But he was alive, at least.

Sam skidded to a stop beside him, wobbling and unsteady on his feet like a kid learning to ride a bike. Dean took a moment to bask in his pride – he really was _that _good if the sight of a gory wound bisecting a guy's abdomen hadn't sucked all the horny right out of Sam – and then turned to the woman. "When I say 'get outta the way', that means _move_, lady!"

Missy looked at him with big watery eyes, incomprehension on her face. "What…"

"Hey, help me, please, call an ambulance, oh god, _please_, help!" The guy interrupted, staring down at his mutilated body like he hadn't quite worked out whether it had actually happened or not. His hands were smearing the blood all over, poking and patting at the wound. The cut itself didn't look life-threatening, but it probably wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. The adrenaline was holding back the pain, but Dean would bet money that the guy was going to be screaming again in a second.

"Dean, we gotta get him outta here. If the spirit comes back…" Sam muttered, pulling Dean to one side with a glance at the distraught couple.

"Yeah, I know. Call an ambulance for him. I'll have a quick chat with Missy Leonard, find out if she has any clue what's been goin' on." Dean said, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Missy, standing a few feet away on the sidewalk gawping like her brain had shut down for the night. With a deep breath, he approached her. "Hey, Missy, I got a few questions to ask you while my friend over there calls an ambulance for your…friend."

She turned to stare at him. "What? How-how do you know my name?"

Dean hid a wince. "Uh, my friend and I are cops. We've been researching some…unusual deaths in the area. Have you noticed anything strange going on? Like, has anyone close to you been attacked recently?"

Missy's eyes wandered over to the hunched form of the guy. Sam was knelt beside him, one hand pressing the ruins of the guy's tee shirt to his torso to slow the bleeding while he held his cell phone to his ear with the other. Dean cleared his throat pointedly and her gaze snapped back to him. "Uh, no officer, nothing strange. Oh, uh, except this one guy, Larry, got killed out back of the restaurant where I work. Does that count?" She tilted her head to one side, blinking as she said it.

Suppressing a growl, Dean pasted on a bright smile for her benefit. "Sure, that counts. Um, how about around your home? Anything…strange goin' on there? Like, weird noises, or anything?"

"No? Why? Do you…do you think someone's trying to kill me?" Missy's hand flew to her mouth and she took a step back. "Oh, my god! Was that guy gonna, like, rape me or something?" She pointed at the guy bleeding out on her front steps.

"Uh, no, ma'am." Dean rolled his eyes, not even bothering to hide it. "But if we could take a quick look around your house, just to make sure everything's secure…"

She nodded, looking up and down the street frantically and moving in closer to Dean like she was expecting bullets to start flying at any moment. Catching Sam's eye, Dean rolled his eyes. A smile pulled at the corners of Sam's mouth, but his hands were quick and sure on the guy's chest, and Dean could hear him murmuring reassurances as he worked.

The sound of sirens grew in the night air, louder as the ambulance approached. Dean pressed his lips together, glancing up and down the street; they couldn't get caught out by the _real _cops, not when they hadn't prepared a story or fake ID's.

He caught Missy's arm. "Hey, so, um, my partner and I can check out your house while you're accompanying your friend to the hospital, if that's okay with you? We'll have to make a stop over at the station first, write up some reports, y'know, but we'll swing by on our way back."

"Oh, uh, sure, I guess." Missy frowned like she was going to start asking more questions, but the ambulance swung onto the street before she could open her mouth. He stuck the shotgun behind his back on instinct.

"Okay, well, if you want to take it from here, my partner and I will be on our way." He started to back away as the ambulance approached, a squad car close on its tail, lights flashing.

"Hey, wait! What's your name?" Missy asked. Clearly her common sense – what little she had of it, anyway – was reasserting itself.

Dean racked his brains. "Uh, Moriarty. Lieutenant Moriarty." He waved to Sam with his free hand, trying to convey _get your ass over here_ without raising Missy's suspicions. Sam clenched his jaw, glancing back at the man bleeding on the street. "Officer…_Paradise_," Dean winced inwardly as he said it. Damn Sam for making him reread _On The Road_. "Let's go. The ambulanceis here, along with our _colleagues _from the _police station_."

Sam blinked at him, and Dean could see the moment it clicked in his head. "Oh. Oh, right, yeah. We'd…better be on our way then. Hold that in place," he directed the guy, who probably wasn't listening to him anyway; his eyes had that familiar glaze of shock and his hands were twitching by his sides.

They hustled out of there, jumping in the Impala as the cop car pulled up behind the ambulance. Dean turned the key in the ignition and the Impala leapt forward with a roar, speeding down the street. He kept an eye on the rear-view mirror; the cops seemed to be busy with Missy and her unlucky friend. Good. Hopefully none of them got the plates.

"So what did you find out?" Sam asked, turning in the seat and pulling a knee up into the space between them.

Dean glanced over, his eyes lingering on the vee of skin still showing at Sam's throat where he hadn't finished buttoning up his shirt. "Uh…"

Sam's lips twitched as if he knew where Dean's thoughts were heading. "The job, Dean."

"Right." Mentally shaking himself, Dean put his brain in _hunt _mode. "Missy said she hadn't noticed anything weird, except for the guy who got killed outside the Hooters bar." He rolled his eyes at that. "I said we'd check out her place once she's gone to the hospital with that guy."

"And she agreed?" Sam sounded incredulous.

Dean shrugged one shoulder. "She didn't seem too bright. Or maybe it was just the guy bleeding on her doorstep that threw her off. Didn't even ask to see my badge, which is good, because I'm pretty sure all the fake ID's are at the bottom of my duffle back at the motel."

"Okay, so what're we gonna do?"

"What we always do, Sammy." Dean shot a sharp grin at him. "Break and enter, then do a little poking around."

*****

The house was dark as they approached, the ambulance and cop car long gone. Sam had insisted on driving around the block five times, just in case.

Dean let out a soft chuckle of disbelief as he bent to pick the lock on the front door; no need, the stupid girl had left it unlocked and available to any enterprising thief in the neighbourhood. It swung open silently when he turned the knob.

"_Dean_." Sam hissed at him as he took a step inside. "Shouldn't we, I don't know, think up some kind of _plan _here? Other than walking blindly inside and getting ourselves slit open from neck to groin."

Dean pulled a face at the image Sam's words produced, glancing back at the kid. "Well, we can't really think up a plan if we don't know what we're looking for. Just, keep hold of the shotgun and we should be okay. If you see anything, shoot it."

Sam grunted, which Dean decided to take as an affirmative.

The hallway was narrow and smelled of cat piss. Dean stepped further inside, pausing with his hand over the light switch as Sam shut the door behind them. He flicked it on, wrinkling his nose at the sight that greeted them; an overflowing litter box, conveniently placed in front of the staircase for anyone to step in if they weren't looking where they were going. The carpeting around the box was discoloured and damp, suggesting that kitty missed more often than hit the target.

Dean stepped around it, shotgun held in one hand. Behind him Sam muttered a curse as he caught sight of the mess, but he didn't falter in his steps, a warm presence at Dean's back.

With his free hand, Dean gestured at the staircase. A moment later, the quiet creak of floorboards told him Sam was on his way up, leaving the lower floor for Dean to explore. There was a half-open door at the end of the hallway, a strip of orange linoleum sticking out from under it in a jagged ridge that overlapped the hall carpet. Kitchen, his mind noted. To his left, an empty doorway of blank dark space. Dean reached out into it, patting down the wall for a light switch.

A yowl from upstairs froze his blood and had him spinning on his heel. One giant stride across the hall, a crunch as his booted foot landed in the kitty-toilet, and he was charging up the stairs after Sam, the shotgun raised to point the way.

Sam burst out of a doorway at the top of the stairs, his own shotgun held loosely in one hand. "It's okay, don't shoot. I'm okay."

Dean's heart didn't seem convinced, still pounding away in his chest like it was trying to break free. "Shit, Sam, you scared the crap outta me! What the hell was that?" He sagged against the banister as he spoke, hands shaky with unused adrenaline.

Sam blushed. "Uh, I trod on the cat." He pointed down at his feet, where a startlingly ginger tom cat was winding its way around Sam's ankles. The cat seemed to have forgiven the kid for stepping on it; it was purring loud enough to compete with Dean's pounding heart and looking up at Sam with what could only be described as an adoring expression on its little kitty face. Dean moved closer, pulling a face when the cat turned to look at him. The thing was mangy, clumps of matted fur sticking out in spikes all over its body, one ear torn and floppy. As if it could hear his thoughts it hissed at him, making him take a step back.

"Sam, that thing looks like it has rabies."

Sam, the idiot, bent down to _pet _the scabby animal. "Hey. It just needs to be brushed-"

"It needs to be _shot_." Both Sam and the cat glared at him through scarily similar narrowed eyes.

The Mexican standoff was interrupted by a crash in one of the bedrooms. Dean had the shotgun up instantly, his gaze searching the dark doorways.

"I think it came from in there." Sam pointed at the nearest door, still crouched on his haunches. The cat leaned up to rub its face against Sam's index finger.

Dean rolled his eyes. "C'mon. And leave your new friend here, I might _accidentally _put it out of its misery."

Sam spared a moment to punch him in the arm then moved forward into the room, gun held out in front of him. Dean followed, his fingers itching to move Sam aside and go in first, because no matter how many times the kid said he could take care of himself, Dean always worried that this hunt would be the one that got him seriously hurt.

The room was empty. Literally; there was no furniture, no bed, not even a lampshade on the bulb swinging lazily overhead. The wallpaper looked as if someone had ripped it off by hand, long shreds like claw marks still clinging to the mottled plaster underneath. The paper that was left was decorated with white puffy clouds on a baby blue background.

Dean glanced around, looking for whatever had made the crashing sound.

"I don't think this is the room." He lowered the gun, turning to face Sam.

Something that felt like a lasso around his waist tightened and then _dragged_, pulling him backward onto his ass. He looked up, met Sam's wide eyes, and then the kid was tumbling down on top of him and both of them were skidding backwards along the bare floorboards. The friction pulled his jeans down around his thighs and stupidly Dean grabbed at them, almost losing the shotgun in the process.

They came to an abrupt halt in some kind of built-in closet. Dean had a second to catch a glimpse of a shadowed person-shape standing by the door before it slammed shut on them, locking them in the tiny dark space.

*****

The sound of a latch being clicked into place made Sam groan. They were locked in. _Of course _they were locked in, because it was _them_ and things like this always happened to them. He supposed he should just be grateful neither of them was being dissected. Yet.

"Sam, you okay?" Dean's voice made him wince; the older man's mouth was right up close to his ear. He leaned back, found out that the space was even smaller than he'd thought when his head hit a wall.

"I'm okay, you?"

"Yeah." Dean wriggled out from under him, one of his knees jabbing in Sam's side as he tried to pull himself to his feet.

When Sam tried to help, he discovered just how small the closet was. "Ow."

"What? What happened?" Dean said, groping around in the dark and almost taking one of Sam's eyes out with a flailing hand.

"Hit my head on some kind of shelf, over there." He pointed, then rolled his eyes. Of course Dean couldn't see where he was pointing. "Can you-" His mouth snapped shut mid-sentence, because Dean's wandering hands were inching a little too close to a sensitive area.

"Sam?" Dean sounded like he had no idea where his hands were or what they were about to stumble across. "Can I what?"

With a jerk, Sam managed to get to his knees, straddling one of Dean's thighs, one hand braced on the closed door while the other held onto the newly-discovered shelf. "Nothing. I'm gonna try to get up, you just…stay still." He got one foot under him, tried nudging Dean's knee aside to put the other flat on the floor.

Dean, being Dean, ignored him completely and started wriggling around again. Sam gritted his teeth and manfully resisted the urge to step on him.

Balancing his weight, Sam walked his hand up the wall like he would climb a chimney, reaching out and searching with the other for a higher shelf. His fingers encountered empty air, and then something soft and fuzzy. With a surprised grunt, he snatched it back on instinct, and then reached out again to tentatively explore. It seemed to be some kind of stuffed animal, four floppy limbs, a head with long ears attached.

Underneath him, Dean tried to lever himself up again. The movement only served to knock Sam's hand off the wall, and he tumbled back down on top of the older man, hand closing on the stuffed toy and pulling it down with him.

Dean let out a wheeze. "Jeez, kid, watch out where you're puttin' those long legs." He said in a high-pitched voice. "Nearly caught me in a very _bad place_, there."

"Well, maybe if you keep _still_…" Sam said, rolling his eyes and throwing the stuffed animal where he thought Dean's face was. From the startled squeak, he hit his target.

"What the hell is that?"

"Stuffed animal, I think."

It hit him on the shoulder a second later. "Dude, you saw the state of this place. It probably has fleas. And it went in my _mouth_." Sounds of spitting followed Dean's statement.

"Thought maybe it would shut you up." Sam said distractedly, working again at pulling himself to his feet. This time Dean stayed still, and Sam managed to get to a standing position without any other surprises. "C'mon, we need to get outta here, or Missy's gonna get home and find two guys in her closet."

Dean snorted at that. "So many jokes I could make about that statement, I don't even know where to begin."

"Then don't." Sam was grateful the darkness hid his grin from Dean; the last thing they needed was for Dean to start thinking he was funny right now. "Just get up and help me find a way out."

"Okay, okay. Gimme a hand."

Sam pressed his back against the wall to give Dean some space to manoeuvre, reaching out and groping blindly for Dean's hand. After a second their hands caught, and with a muffled grunt Dean was scrambling up, elbows and knees knocking against every available surface, from the sound of it.

With a long breath that warmed Sam's face, Dean managed to right himself. "Okay. So. We're standing. Now what?"

Sam shrugged, even though Dean wouldn't see it. "Try busting the door down? I know how much you like to break stuff."

"Funny." A hand clapped on Sam's shoulder. "Okay, so, both together? If we get as far back as we can…" Dean guided him back against the rows of shelves stacked along the far wall. It gave them less than a foot of space for a run up. Sam pulled a face, but when Dean spoke there was nothing but optimism in his voice. "Right, on three. One, two…three."

They threw themselves at the door.

It didn't give even half an inch.

"Dean, this isn't gonna work."

Dean huffed. "Not with that attitude, it's not."

From the other side of the door, Sam heard a faint scratching. He put a hand on Dean's arm, squeezing once. Dean fell silent and they both listened.

The scratching came again, like someone was dragging fingernails over the outer surface of the door in sharp bursts. Sam frowned; was the ghost trying to freak them out? Unexplained noises were signs of a poltergeist, but they'd already moved past the whole scare tactic thing.

A loud and mournful _mroooow_ answered his question, and Dean snorted beside him. "Sounds like your new friend is missing you, Sammy."

The cat started scratching at the door again. Sam let his head fall back against one of the higher shelves behind him. "So, what do we do now?"

He felt Dean's shrug, their shoulders pressed together in the enclosed space. "Twenty questions?"

Sam didn't even deign to answer that.

*****

Dean's idea of a good time; Sam, beer, the Impala, an open road and some good music. Maybe with a rest stop for some make-out time, and he'd never felt more girly in his _life _after thinking that.

Being locked in a closet with barely enough room to breathe? Not what Dean would classify as a good time. Even if the closet did contain Sam, too. Because apart from the pitch-black and the uncomfortable row of shelves digging furrows in his back, the Sam-worshipping cat outside wouldn't let up with the yowling and scratching, and while Dean could totally understand the agony of being on one side of a door while Sam was _all the way _on the other side, it was kind of distracting when he was trying to attempt a stealthy seduction.

Hey, it wasn't like they had anything better to do.

So far, Sam hadn't seemed too open to it.

"Dean, that's my chin you're trying to grope there. I'm _really _hoping that wasn't what you were aiming for, because I'm not indulging your chin fetish if it was."

Dean rolled his eyes, trying to will away the blush before realising that it was _dark_, Sam couldn't see his embarrassment. "No, idiot. I was _trying _to pull you forcefully into my arms, maybe ravish you until you swoon." Yeah, Dean had found those trashy harlequin romance novels Sam had tried to leave under the bed in a motel room in Connecticut.

He leaned in again, hand slipping from Sam's chin to the soft hair at the nape of his neck. The dark made it hard to aim for Sam's mouth – the kid didn't seem to appreciate his nostrils being licked, surprisingly – but after a readjustment, Sam was a lot more enthusiastic.

Dean pulled him closer, tilting his head for a better angle and enjoying the stutter of breath Sam let out as the kiss deepened. He'd kissed a lot of women (really, a _lot_) and not one of them even came close to matching Sam. The kid kissed like it was a whole-body experience, like he was addicted to Dean's lips on his. From what Dean had pieced together, Sam hadn't kissed many people before Dean, not really surprising considering he grew up with Jim Miller. Dean spared a moment to imagine Jim teaching Sam about the birds and the bees; shuddered with the image. Luckily, Sam didn't seem to notice, instead pressing into Dean's chest like he wanted to be absorbed into his skin. It made Dean stumble back into the stacked shelves, but he didn't pull away, didn't even think to. The dig of each ridge in his back added an edge of pain to the blissful sensation of _Sam_, just enough to focus him.

He turned his head to one side, keeping a hand buried in Sam's hair and the other holding the small of his back. Sam panted in his ear, warm breaths that made everything seem close and too-tight. "Hey, hey." Dean gasped out, squeezing his eyes shut. Sam pressed kisses to the curve of his neck, nuzzling at his cheek and trying to search out his lips again.

The cat started up the scratching at the door again, a scrabble of claws that sounded like crumpling tin foil, setting Dean's teeth on edge. It sounded like it was closer, closer, echoing all around, bringing the walls in on them.

Sam cupped his face in both hands. Big, hot hands. His breaths puffed over Dean's nose and mouth, sweet and sweaty, blocking Dean's air supply.

"Sam!" Dean's gasps grew, his fingers curling to grip at the back of Sam's shirt.

"Dean?" Sam finally seemed to notice something was wrong, stepping back and dropping his hands. "Dean, what's wrong?"

"Too, too hot…no air…"

"Dean, are you _claustrophobic_?" Sam sounded incredulous.

Dean pulled a face, opening his mouth to say no, of course not, what the hell made Sam think that, but all that came out was a pathetic wheeze, and was it possible being on the second floor meant the air was thinner, some kind of altitude thing that no one had noticed until now?

"God, Dean, sit down before you fall down." Sam's hands grasped his arms, careful like his was afraid Dean might break. He moved Dean around like he was a doll, positioning him right by the door and pushing at his shoulders until Dean sunk down to a sit. His breaths were coming faster and faster, blood pounding around his brain until he thought it might burst. He pulled his knees to his chest, hugging them close and – to his utter shame – rocking back and forth, just a little.

Sam tried to kneel too, but there wasn't enough room. Instead Dean could feel him bending awkwardly over, trying not to take up too much space. He was patting Dean on the head like a dog, whispering words that only caught up with him a few seconds later; "…it's okay, Dean, calm down, it's okay, I'm here, just breathe…"

Dean would _love _to breathe, but his lungs didn't seem to get that message, closing up on him like someone was stealing all his air before it reached them.

And then the door swung open and Dean practically _threw _himself at the rectangle of open space, gulping down air like he'd been drowning. He caught a glimpse of Missy Leonard's face, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as he fell in an ungainly heap at her feet. An orange _something_ flashed in the corner of his vision, and he heard Sam squeak before a rumbling sound like the engine of a small boat started up.

The damn cat, purring joyfully to be reunited with _Dean's boyfriend_. It was possible lack of air had made him crazy, because he was pretty sure that was a surge of jealousy he was feeling. Jealousy of a _cat_. And a scabby cat at that.

Sam's hand was on his back a second later, rubbing gently as he murmured soft words, and it made Dean feel a little better. _Suck on that, kitty, he pets _me _before he pets _you_. _

"Uh, officers?" They both looked up at Missy Leonard's startled face. A heartbeat of time passed where no one moved, and then Missy's face twisted into something darkly considering.

*****

An hour later, and Sam was watching through the windshield of the Impala as Missy was led away in handcuffs by the _actual _police.

As it turned out, the homicidal ghost of her husband? Was only trying, in his own fucked up way, to _protect_ the many, _many _guys Missy brought home with her. The closet they'd been tossed into turned out to be, as Dean insisted on calling it, Missy's 'closet-of-crazy'. Missy had decorated the closet in wall-to-ceiling photos, all of babies, stuffed toys crammed in the space and a brand new stroller folded under the shelves that had been reported stolen two weeks ago. Sam was just grateful that the young mother it had been taken from hadn't left her child in it at the time. Missy had apparently been so desperate for a child of her own that when her husband told her he was infertile, something had snapped. Her husband had ended up in a 'mysterious' car accident, while Missy went out and got a job that meant easy access to a lot of sperm-making men. Unfortunately, when some of the guys insisted on being gentlemen, Missy went a little (more) crazy. Dean winced at the descriptions one of the cops gave, one hand covering his crotch as if Missy might lunge at him with a pair of scissors.

"Wow, that was a fun job. Let's never do anything like it ever again." Dean deadpanned, climbing into the driver's seat.

Sam grinned at him. "Hey, at least it's over now."

"Yeah." The older man said on an exhale, staring over at Missy as she was prodded into the back of a squad car. "Huh."

"What?"

Dean turned to look at him, a half smile on his face. He threw an arm over the back of the seat, his fingers brushing Sam's shoulder. "Just thinkin'. Y'know, that could've been me."

Sam pulled a face. "What, seducing men for their baby-making sperm?"

It wasn't a total surprise when Dean slapped the back of his head lightly. "No, you dick. I mean, I could've been one of those guys she took home." His gaze fell and he chewed at his lower lip, a sure sign that Dean was mentally preparing himself to say something serious. Sam turned bodily on the seat to face him, attentive expression on. It wasn't like Dean got introspective a lot, so when it happened, Sam knew he had to pay _really _close attention or risk shutting Dean down altogether.

"What do you mean?"

Dean stared out the window for a long moment, then turned his head and flashed a fake grin at him. "I dunno if you noticed, Sammy, but before I met you I was kind of a slut. A big, drunken slut. If I'd met her in a Hooters bar, I'da taken her home, and I'da slept with her too, if her husband hadn't slit me open first." He sucked in a huge noisy breath, his grin melting into something more real. "I'm just…real glad I met you, is all. Real glad that we have _this_," he waved his hand in the air between them "because…well, you're kinda the best thing that ever happened to me, kiddo." He cleared his throat after saying it, rubbing a hand over his mouth like he could pretend he hadn't just said something ridiculously sappy with no life-or-death situation to explain it.

Sam grinned at him, so warm inside that he might as well have been wrapped in Dean's arms, smothered by Dean's lips and heady masculine scent.

To cover for it, he shoved at Dean's shoulder. "You're just tryin' to butter me up so you can have first shower when we get back to the room, aren't you?"

Dean grinned at him, his eyes crinkling. He took a quick glance out at the parade of cop cars, then leaned over, pressing a smacking kiss to Sam's cheek. "Love you, kiddo."

Sam blushed, stupid sloppy smile making the corners of his mouth ache. "Love you too. Now drive, or I'll go back for the cat."

"You wouldn't." Dean glanced over, a smug expression on his face as he turned the ignition. "That old woman nearly burst with joy when you gave the damned thing to her, you'd break her heart taking it back now."

"Yeah, you're right. Besides, who needs a mangy cat when I have you? You're mangy enough to satisfy me."

*****

Housekeeping had been in while they'd been gone – luckily they'd never gotten around to unpacking the car, so the poor woman who cleaned hadn't stumbled over any unwelcome surprises.

She'd also turned up the thermostat; Sam opened the door and was literally hit by a wall of heated air. Behind him, Dean groaned. "God, I just got _out _of one tiny sweaty room, I don't need to go _into _another one."

"I'll turn it back down." Sam said, practically choking on the thick air as he made his way over to the tiny dial on the far wall. Dean stayed outside, eyeing his bed longingly and making exaggerated moaning noises. Sam rolled his own eyes, masking a grin. "It's not _that _bad, you giant girl."

"It's too _hot_, Sammy." Dean whined. It hadn't taken Sam long to learn about Dean's propensity for complaining about the small problems in life, like paper-cuts or the guy that short-changed him at the gas station ten miles back. It was annoying, because Dean never said anything when it was the _big _stuff; suffered driving across town in stoic silence when he dislocated his shoulder after fighting off a ghoul that one time when Sam was too high on morphine to do anything about it. Sam figured it was Dean's fucked-up version of evening things out; he'd keep quiet about the really bad stuff, the stuff that actually _mattered_, but whine endlessly about the tiny, easily-remedied details.

At least the little details were usually something Sam could help to fix.

"I want my _bed_, Sam. Can't you open the windows or something?" Dean called from the doorway.

With a sigh, Sam obliged. Except… "Windows are sealed shut."

A strangled whine was his only answer. He looked over; Dean was slumped against the doorway, hands grasping the wood like it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. All very dramatic, and it brought a grin to Sam's face.

Still, Dean was going a little heavy on the acting; pleading eyes, hand held out like a dying man's final wish. "Sam_my_…"

It occurred to Sam that there _was _something he could do for Dean. Something that would make the older man forget all about the hot room, and the claustrophobic closet, and the psycho woman out to get his sperm whether he consented or not. Biting his lip, he half-turned to face the bathroom, taking a step like he was considering a shower. He checked Dean was watching from the corner of his eye and then played his trump card.

Or took his shirt off, whatever.

Dean's drawn-out moan was abruptly cut off.

"Y'know, Dean, it _is _hot in here."

A half-stifled laugh. "Please don't let that be a bad pop-reference. 'Cause guys who wear sticky tape on their faces as a fashion statement really don't do it for me." But Dean had stepped into the room, moving up behind him, close enough to trap another layer of heat between his body and Sam's bare back.

Sam's eyes fluttered closed as big hands spanned his shoulders, fingers curling over his collarbones possessively. Dean leaned in, nuzzling at the soft baby-fine hairs at the nape of Sam's neck, pressing a soft kiss behind his ear. The hands slid down his chest, arms pulling him back and wrapping him up tight. It felt so good, like being swallowed up by Dean, and Sam let his head fall back, lips blindly searching out Dean's. The older man obliged, kissing him with surprising tenderness as one of his hands caught Sam's and entwined their fingers.

Sam peeked up at his boyfriend – yeah, his _boyfriend_, the guy who loved him – smiling when he saw the mirror of his feelings reflected in Dean's half-shuttered eyes. His gaze wandered to his still-packed duffle, sitting by the open door. "Dean…"

Dean glanced over to the bag, knew what Sam was asking without words.

And, of course, he took a giant step back, putting half the room between them. His hand went to the back of his neck, scratching compulsively. "Uh, Sam…"

Sam let out a long sigh. "Let me guess. This 'isn't the right time'?"

"Well, we're both pretty tired…"

He threw his arms out wide, watching Dean's gaze travel down his chest as the movement made his muscles ripple, before his eyes snapped back to Sam's face. "There's never gonna be a _perfect _time, Dean!" He pressed his lips together, reigning in the anger before it could take over. "Do you just not want to sleep with me? Is that it?"

Dean's eyes widened. "What? No, no, of course not, Sammy! Don't even…you know how much I love you, don't even think that. I just think, well," he waved a vague hand in the air, "there's gotta be a better time and place than here, in a tiny cheap _fucking boiling _motel room, after some fucked-up job."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean, I don't care about any of that. I just care about you, about _us_." He resisted the urge to stamp his foot. "So c'mon, why can't we do it now?"

"I don't think us yelling at each other from across the room is really setting the mood, Sam." Dean said, his voice tight. "I'm gonna go take a shower. It's too fucking hot in here."

Sam watched Dean turn his back and stalk into the bathroom, exasperation locking his jaw. When the door shut with a lock _click_, he sunk back onto the single bed, rubbing a heavy hand through his hair. Sometimes, Dean really did just _piss him off_.

His annoyance dissipated when Dean came back in the room, sliding into bed behind him wordlessly and wrapping him up in his arms. His skin was still damp and chilled from the shower, and Sam shivered as Dean pressed an apologetic kiss to the back of his neck. He fell asleep quickly, soothed by Dean stroking a gentle hand along his hip.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly

You like? You don't like? Review and tell me why! (Constructive criticism only please, if you don't like the subject, don't read the story.) If you haven't read the FMFC series yet, you'll probably want to read those first or this won't make much sense…

Chapter 3

Sam stepped into the motel room, a cardboard tray containing two cups of coffee in one hand and a greasy bag of frosted donuts in the other – a peace offering for Dean, who apparently got some kind of illicit thrill from overloading on sugar for breakfast.

He stopped dead at Dean's panicked expression, eyebrows raised. Dean had obviously been sitting at the table in front of the laptop when he heard Sam unlocking the door. He'd shoved the chair back, half-standing over the open laptop with both hands on the lid. His face was the colour of a tomato. Sam's first thought was that he'd caught Dean in the middle of whacking one off to downloaded porn, but the older man's jeans were still zipped and buttoned, and not even a hint of a hard-on pushed at the material over his crotch.

"Dean? What's goin' on?"

"Nothing! Nothing, just…" Dean waved a hand in the air, the other slamming the lid of the laptop shut. "Checking emails, y'know?"

A smirk pulled at Sam's lips; Dean got so damn _cute _when he was flustered. "Emails, huh? Anything good?"

"Nah, just a load of junk-mail, free Viagra and all that shit." Dean cast his eyes about the room as he talked, a sure sign that he was keeping something from Sam.

"Mind if I check mine?" He took a step forward, was brought to a sudden halt when Dean's hand landed on his chest, physically holding him back from the laptop.

"No! No, I'm…not done yet."

"Okay, I'll wait." Sam sat on the bed, a clear view of the laptop in his sight. He pulled out a donut and started eating; watching Dean was an entertainment best enjoyed with sugary foods.

Dean's head swivelled back and forth between Sam and the laptop, a barely-hidden look of terror on his face. His mouth worked on soundless excuses, and finally Sam gave in. "Okay Dean, what is it?"

"What's what?" Dean's tone was one of over-contrived nonchalance. It always amazed Sam – Dean could stand in front of a room full of people and have them completely convinced he was a police officer, or an FBI agent, or a freaking NASA test pilot if he wanted to. Hell, he could look _Sam _straight in the eye and tell him he was going out for coffee, and then come back three hours later covered in blood, having killed the monster-of-the-week by himself because he didn't want to _risk _Sam in a situation he deemed too dangerous.

But when it came to stupid things, like who used up the last of the toothpaste, Dean was absolutely useless.

Finally Sam took pity on the older man. "What are you looking at on the internet, Dean? Because if it's the site with the all-girl orgy again…"

If possible, Dean's face turned even redder. "_What_? How do… Uh, I mean, what are you talking about?"

"Dude, I know you jerk off to porn on the laptop." Sam said, making sure Dean could see his half-grin. "It's not a big secret. Hell, I've walked in on you!"

"I thought you said you didn't… You know what, it doesn't matter." Dean looked like he wanted nothing more than to hide under the bedcovers. "I wasn't looking at porn, okay? Just…look, can't you go use the bathroom or something?" His eyes turned beseeching.

"Why? Dean, I really don't mind if you were looking at porn. I told you, I didn't expect you to give up jerking off, just 'cause we aren't having sex yet."

"_I am not looking at porn_." Dean's hands buried themselves in his hair. "I…look, I was just…doing some research."

Sam frowned, cocking his head. "For what? Do we have a new job?"

"No. It's…not that kind of research." Dean looked like he was close to strangling himself, his hands scrubbing over his face compulsively.

"Then…what?" Sam watched curiously as Dean shifted on his feet, his hands flying from his face to link fingers at the back of his neck. Whatever Dean was doing, it was…hell, Sam didn't even _know_. He'd never seen Dean so awkward and embarrassed before, not even the time he'd walked in on him in the bathroom in the middle of the night, stark naked and taking a piss sitting down. The memory still made him crack up, and he struggled to keep a straight face. The last thing they needed right now was Sam in hysterics; Dean would never get out whatever he was trying to say.

"I, uh. I was. Researching. Um." _You said that part already_, Sam opened his mouth to say. But Dean shot him a warning look, like he could hear his thoughts, and Sam snapped his mouth shut again. "I was researching, for, y'know. When we…do it."

"Do…what?"

With a frustrated growl, Dean threw his hands up. "Just go look." He gestured brusquely at the computer.

Sam pushed himself up, and then almost fell back down again as Dean stormed past him to the bathroom, a muttered "tell me when you're done. Or better yet, don't, and we can forget this ever happened."

Mystified, Sam watched him go.

And then turned to the laptop, half-wary now. If whatever Dean had been looking at provoked that kind of reaction…

He opened it up. Immediately the open web page sprung onto the screen. It took Sam a second to register what he was actually seeing, and then.

Well.

It definitely wasn't porn.

*****

Dean sat on the toilet, his head in his hands, feeling like he might _actually_ erupt in flames. God, _why _did Sam have to walk in while he was looking at that particular site?

There were no sounds coming from the other room, and Dean ventured a peek up at the closed bathroom door. Maybe Sam had been so freaked out he'd left? Dean couldn't blame the kid if he had; some of the stuff he'd seen on that site had freaked _him_ out, and he'd known beforehand what he'd been getting into.

He'd just wanted to be prepared. Surely Sam could understand that? Sam was always telling him to think ahead, to make a plan, and he had to get points for following advice. Right?

God, he was such a pussy, hiding out in the goddamn bathroom. Dean forced himself to his feet, reaching out one hand for the doorknob.

It swung open before he could touch it, and he leapt back, feeling jittery as a stray cat.

"Dean?" Sam's head appeared around the door. His face was strangely expressionless, and Dean wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not.

"Uh, hey." He chewed his lip, wincing at the sharp pain as his teeth dug into soft flesh. "You, uh, you look at it?"

"Yeah." Sam moved all the way into the room, his face still blank of emotion.

Dean couldn't hold eye contact for longer than a few seconds, his gaze skittering away to the safe sight of a half-empty shampoo bottle on its side in the tiny shower cubicle. "So, can we forget about it now? It…it was just some stupid thing I was looking at anyway, it didn't really…it didn't mean anything…"

"Dean." Sam stepped into his space, his hand reaching out to turn Dean's face towards him. "You were looking at a site on how to have gay sex. A _detailed _site, with diagrams and step-by-step instructions."

Oh, god. That was it. Sam thought he was a total weird freak. Hell, _Dean _thought he was a total weird freak. He'd had known exactly what he was looking for as he typed the words into Google, but actually _hearing _them out loud…

"That is…quite possibly the sweetest, most disturbing thing you've ever done." It took Dean a minute to process Sam's words. When he did, his embarrassment dropped away for a second and he looked up in surprise.

Sam's smile was shy and hesitant, his eyes peeking up at Dean from under his bangs. His hand trailed down to rest over Dean's heart, fingers splayed in a star. "You're kinda…the most amazing person I've ever met, ever. And I know that's not really saying a lot, considering what I grew up with, but…I just wanted you to know."

"Sam…" Dean was quite literally speechless. Words deserted him, because Sam thought _he _was amazing?

The kid moved closer, his other hand tracing the lines of muscle along Dean's forearm, stroking downward until his fingers were curling over the skin of Dean's upturned palm. The touch tickled, sensitive nerves sparking and purring under the caress. Holding his gaze, Sam lifted the hand to his lips, pressing a light kiss in the very centre of Dean's palm. When he let it go, Dean could still feel the soft imprint of Sam's lips, like a brand, a permanent mark he would wear forever. His hand clenched involuntarily, holding that echo of a kiss in a tight fist as if he could protect it, and by extension, protect Sam too.

Sam was watching him through his dark hair, the stark elegant lines of his cheekbones a perfect contrast to the softness of his baby-pouted lips. The emotions swelled up inside Dean as his eyes hungrily devoured the sight, emotions he felt at least a million times each day, but every time they made his breath catch with the enormity of their meaning.

There was nothing he wouldn't do for Sam.

Sam smiled, his face breaking open like the first spear of sunlight cleaving the night sky. "Hey. I brought you donuts."

Dean smiled right back. It was him, and it was Sam. The kid was right; it was already pretty perfect.

*****

Smoke billowed from the open hood of the Impala like a dying man's last breath. Dean had his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow despite the sudden rainstorm that had hit as they were driving out of town. His hands were dripping grease and oil, but he didn't seem to notice, rubbing them through his hair in frustration and leaving big black handprints on his hips when he stood back to survey the damage.

Sam leaned out of the passenger side window, squinting through the driving rain. "Dean! Get back in the car, willya, you're gonna catch pneumonia if you stand out there!"

Dean shot him a look through narrowed eyes and yelled back. "No! I can get her started again, it's probably just the radiator overheating." He turned the look on the car. "Easily fixed, I can do it in five minutes."

With a sigh Sam was glad Dean couldn't hear over the rain, he pulled his head back inside, scrubbing the damp from his hair with the sleeve of his hoody.

_Perfect_, the older man had said. He wanted their first time together to be _perfect_. They couldn't stay at the motel while the storm passed over, Dean said, because it wasn't _perfect_. Sam shut his eyes, shifting irritably in his seat as he pulled his hood over his head. The heating had given up along with whatever had blown under the hood, and the damned storm had killed what little California heat hung around during the winter. Outside, something was dropped with a loud clang, followed by a stream of inventive curses.

Sam unwound the window to call out to Dean again, but the older man's head appeared around the open hood before he could open his mouth, tension pulling his mouth into a thin white line. "Not a word, Sam."

"Just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm _fine_. The car will be working again in two minutes."

Sam bit back his retort. Dean disappeared behind the hood again, just as the rain started really pelting down.

With another sigh and a longing look at the relative comfort of the inside of the Impala, Sam pushed the car door open, climbing out. A second look, and he snatched up Dean's leather jacket, holding it over his head like a badly-constructed tent.

Dean looked up as he rounded the front of the car, his eyebrows pulling together. "Sam, get back in the car. It's freezing out here."

"Yeah, I noticed." Sam's mouth twisted in a slight smile. "And yet, you're still outside."

"I'm fixing the car." Dean clapped both hands on the grill, like the combination of words and actions would make it magically fix itself.

Sam looked at the car, watching steam hiss from one of the…car parts. Then he looked up at Dean, who was seemingly transfixed by the same sight. After thirty seconds, the older man was still watching, making no move to try and fix anything.

Sam cleared his throat. "Uh, Dean?"

"What." The bitten-out reply didn't sound good, and neither did the tension whitening his knuckles.

"What…uh… I thought you said you could fix it. Easily."

"I can."

"Then, uh, why don't you…do that?" Sam took a tentative step towards Dean, holding the jacket-umbrella out to partially cover him too.

And then he took a reflexive step back as Dean sent him a dark look over his shoulder, jaw clenched. "Because."

"Because?"

Dean pulled a hand down his face, oblivious of the black skid-marks left smeared over his nose and cheeks. "Because… The radiator is overheated. It's an easy fix. If you have a bottle of water to pour in there."

"And we don't have a bottle of water."

"Nope."

"Great. Of course we don't." Sam didn't even try to hide his long sigh. "Just…c'mon, let's get back in the car while the storm passes over. We can go for a bottle of water when it's not raining."

Dean let out an enormous shuddery breath, finally turning to face Sam. He looked ridiculous; his hair on end and blackened with grease, smears of it on his cheeks and one corner of his mouth. It made Sam want to laugh at first, but he held it in – Dean probably wouldn't appreciate being the butt of a joke right now – and then something turned over deep in Sam's belly, a tightness that sucked all the air from his lungs. God, was he getting _turned on_?

He took another quick step back, like Dean would be able to sense the niggling arousal shortening Sam's breaths. But it didn't abate; the smell of Dean hung over him, deep and masculine, and it took Sam a second to remember he had Dean's leather jacket draped over his head, the scent of _Dean_ so deeply ingrained in it that it made Sam feel giddy.

"Okay, kiddo." Dean didn't seem to notice anything wrong, didn't seem to catch the blush rapidly rising in Sam's cheeks. "Let's wait it out, then."

The older man turned back to the car, slamming the hood shut with both hands. He stepped back, into Sam's space, ducking his head under the cover of his jacket. The movement was natural; they'd been living in each others pockets for so long now.

Sam closed his eyes, willing his body to _stay still, stay steady_, and nodded. "Yeah, let's…let's get back in the car."

Dean reached over, catching his arm in a careless move, tugging him along to the driver's side. He opened the door, pushing Sam in front of him to get in first, and Sam had barely crawled into the car before Dean was following.

_God_, this was insane. Sam's blood was pounding through his veins, making him heat up from the inside out. His dick was hard in his baggy jeans, the head rubbing against his boxers and sending shivers through him. Dean was shivering too, his clothes soaked through with rain, and he barely glanced over at Sam before he-

Jesus. Before he stripped off his shirt, baring his broad chest to Sam's wide eyes. His nipples were tight and peaked, tiny goosebumps dotting his forearms and making the short hairs there stand on end. Dean looked down at his dirty hands, his lip curling as he tried to wipe the grease off with the discarded shirt. Sam watched as he screwed each of his long fingers in the material, focused only on the task of cleaning every spot of grease from the creases of his knuckles.

"Sammy? You okay?"

Dean's voice made him drag his eyes away, up to the older man's face. There was a tiny frown creasing the skin between Dean's eyes, and his gaze searched Sam's face.

"Huh?" Sam said stupidly, feeling his blushing cheeks darken further.

"You look all pink. You feelin' okay there, kiddo?" Dean leaned forward, reaching a hand out to touch Sam's face.

Sam jerked away before it could connect, feeling beyond idiotic. Christ, he'd been the one to insist on having sex, he'd been the one to push and push and push, and now that Dean had finally agreed, Sam was like a small child again, scared of his own body's responses. "I…I'm…"

Dean's hand landed on Sam's thigh, high enough to send a zigzag of heat up, up to Sam's eager cock. _Fuck_. It made Sam's heart race, and not entirely in a good way. He bit his lip, angry with himself. He was _over this_, damn it. Unexpected touches didn't make him flinch anymore, especially not _Dean's _touches, Dean's hands on him. This shouldn't be any different, just because the door was open for it to go further.

"Sam, what's wro-" The older man was cut off mid-sentence, his mouth suddenly occupied.

He sputtered a bit into Sam's mouth, twisting away far enough for the words to escape – "Sammy, Jeez-" – and then Sam reattached, climbing monkeylike into Dean's lap to prevent any further attempts at talk. His arms curled around Sam's waist, an automatic gesture that made Sam moan into his mouth. Better, this was better. Better to do it fast, before he had time to think, to question. Dean was finally, _finally_, getting with the programme, tentatively returning Sam's desperate kisses.

When Dean started to kiss him back with the same passion Sam felt it was almost too much. Too much of _Dean_, all around him, bared skin at his front for his fingers to roam restlessly over, bare arms encircling him and holding him close, and still that heady scent of _wet _and _male _and the beginnings of _sex_. Sam's hips lurched forward, ungainly and sharp, and Dean's hands settled on the points of his pelvis.

"Sam…Sam, what…what is this?" Dean stuttered out between long kisses, the words caught against Sam's mouth.

"Want you. Want you _now_." Sam said insistently. Any doubts he'd been feeling were slipping away with Dean's touch, the sensations shorting out his brain before it could process, and now all he needed was _more_, more sensation, more touch, more _Dean_. He rolled his hips again, experimenting with the unfamiliar angles and pressures, and gasped when his hard dick came into contact with Dean's flat stomach. The feeling was muffled by the thick denim of his jeans, and his hands flew to his zipper. "Dean, please, feels…good, more…"

"Sam! Sam, we're not," Dean tried to catch hold of Sam's wrists, wriggling under him as Sam pushed against his grip, "we're not doing this _here_!"

Sam ignored him, leaning down to suck bruises into the thin skin at Dean's bared throat as his hands worked at his fly.

"_Sam_! Slow _down_, willya, there's no rush!" Dean's hands caught hold of his arms at the elbow, pulling them away from his body. A whimpering sound escaped Sam's throat before he could catch it and reel it back.

Dean's face was flushed, but his expression was set as he all but hauled Sam backward on his lap. Sam felt the steering wheel at his back, uncomfortable and hard. "Dean," he said in the smallest voice he could manage, "don't you want to?"

"Not when you're freaked out and trying to prove something to yourself, kiddo." Dean said, his face softening around the edges. Sam couldn't hold his gaze, guilt fluttering through him and tainting all the good feelings Dean's touch had brought to the surface, and he turned his head away before the older man could read it in his eyes.

Dean let go of his arms, a gentle hand reaching out to touch Sam's chin, turning it to face him again. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to Sam's in a soft, chaste kiss. "It's okay, Sammy. It's okay if you're scared. You just…you gotta talk to me, man. We can't do this unless I know what you're thinking and how you're feeling."

The rain thundered down outside the car, rattling on the roof and windscreen like a drum roll, and Sam shut his eyes for a second, breathed through his nose and let the sound calm some of the urgency in his body. Dean helped, his hand slipping from Sam's chin to the back of his neck. His fingers threaded through Sam's thick hair, a hand span almost too huge to be real cupping Sam's head like he was a newborn baby, Dean supporting his fragile body until it was strong enough to hold together on its own.

"I'm scared." Sam admitted, his gaze fixed on Dean's chest. "But…I don't want you to think we shouldn't do it."

"Kid, we're not doing anything until you're a hundred and ten per cent sure that it's what you _want_. No fear, no pretending."

"Well, what am I supposed to do then, Dean?" Sam threw his hands up, anger rising up and allowing him to meet Dean's eyes. He let it wash over him, pushing aside all his nervousness and confusion. Anger was good. Anger he could deal with. "I don't know how to make it go away! I _want this_, us, together! I'm not letting some…_stupid_ _thing_ that happened to me _years _ago get in the way!"

"It wasn't a stupid thing, Sam." Dean said quietly. "It was attempted _rape_. You can't just push that aside and act like it didn't happen."

"Don't!" Sam jerked away, rolling off of Dean's lap in a messy tangle of limbs. He didn't stop until he was pressed up against the passenger door. "Don't…say that."

But Dean was insistent. "That's what it _was_, Sam. Gareth tried to rape you."

"But he didn't! You were there, you stopped him! Nothing happened!"

"He still _touched _you!" Dean's jaw clenched around the words, like he was trying to hold them back. He sucked in a tight breath, letting it out slowly before he continued speaking. "And you need to deal with that before anything can happen between us. I don't want him in bed with us when we finally have sex, Sam. I won't let him…force you into something you're not ready for."

Sam pressed his lips together, turning his face away from Dean. He heard the older man sigh loudly from the other side of the car.

They sat in silence until the rain stopped.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly

You like? You don't like? Review and tell me why! (Constructive criticism only please, if you don't like the subject, don't read the story.) If you haven't read the FMFC series yet, you'll probably want to read those first or this won't make much sense…

Warning - male/male sex. Seriously, if this is a problem for you, then you don't want to read this story...

Chapter 4

How did you get over being attacked? How could you force your mind to forget something, just push it aside like it didn't even matter anymore? It was impossible.

Except it wasn't, because Sam had already done it once before. He remembered a time, years ago, back when he first met Dean, that every night would bring a new memory of his father. Every night, something he thought he'd forgotten would come back to haunt him, playing out behind closed eyelids like a movie. His dad barking at him for being too slow, too loud, too clumsy. Telling him to do it again, and do it _right _this time. One night he'd started shivering in his sleep, and Dean had woken him up in a panic because it was eighty degrees out and Sam was shaking so hard his teeth chattered together. Sam brushed it off as a nightmare, and Dean didn't press. He never told the older man he'd dreamt of himself at five, his dad aiming a loaded gun at his head and slurring his words as he told him to clean up the damn mess in the kitchen.

If he could get over that, then he could get over Gareth.

The lock to the door in front of him unlatched with a soft _click_, and Sam carefully tucked his lock picks back in their leather casing. Pushed his thoughts and worries away with them, because he needed to be sharp, needed to be ready.

The job was a relatively easy one; a succubus, latched onto a teenage boy with more hormones than sense. His mother had worked herself into near-hysteria over it, calling everyone and anyone she could think of that might help – doctors, psychiatrists, hypnotherapists. She'd even called a priest, her words stuttered and catching over the answer phone message – _"…we're not Christian, actually, we're not religious at all, but…if this isn't the work of some kind of demon…"_ Luckily the priest happened to be an associate of the late Pastor Jim Murphy, friend of John Winchester, and John had passed the job on to Sam and Dean.

Simple, Dean had said, grinning at him from across the motel room earlier. Get in, catch the succubus in the act, exorcise it and the boy, get the hell out again. Easy as pie. Sam had rolled his eyes, because _nothing _ever turned out easy and simple for them.

But here they were, breaking and entering in the dead of night, and it was just another gig. Just another distraction.

Dean stood close behind him, gaze sweeping the empty street. He held a bottle of holy water in one hand, a sawn-off loaded with rock salt in the other.

Sam sat back on his haunches as the door swung silently open.

"Good work, Sammy." Dean whispered, an uncertain smile touching his lips for a second. They'd been jumpy around each other all week after that day in the car.

He pressed his lips together tight; just thinking about it, he could feel the anger and hurt prickling up under the surface of his skin. Instead he nodded to Dean, not meeting the other man's eyes. "C'mon. The boy's room is on the second floor."

"Right. Okay." Dean muttered under his breath, glancing up and down the street. Sam crept through the open door, hearing Dean's near-silent footfalls following him.

The boy's mother, Marissa Greenlaw, had told them all they needed to know earlier in the day, a tearful confession interspersed with darting looks at the window to the street, like she was afraid the neighbours might be pressed up against the wall outside, listening for gossip. Apparently, the boy had been having…_vocal _dreams for nearly two weeks now, dreams that neither she nor her husband had been able to wake him from. He'd been waking later and later, his face gaunt and seemingly drained of blood, but his appetite had been voracious, like he was trying to make up for the energy his dreams stole from him. It all fit with the succubus MO; draining the victim in his sleep over a prolonged period of time, feeding off their body until they died.

A simple job, supposedly. All they had to do was get past Marissa's bedroom first.

Behind him, Dean stubbed his toe on something in the dark, hissing curses. Sam rolled his eyes and kept walking.

*****

Dean followed the vague shape of Sam's body, walking as close as he dared. Close enough to touch, and his fingers itched to reach out and do just that. He clenched them into fists by his sides.

They weren't okay. And yeah, it wasn't the end of the world – living like they did, it was unavoidable that sometimes they'd piss each other off, spend days angry at each other before making up again – but it still sucked, big time. He just wished Sam would take a moment and think about what he was asking for, because _god _Dean wanted him, so much he couldn't breathe sometimes, but he wouldn't, _wouldn't_, do anything until Sam was ready.

Sometimes Dean looked at Sam and instead of seeing a fragile, bruised kid, he could see a glimpse of the incredibly strong, beautiful man he was so close to becoming. The man that Dean _knew_, just _knew_, was his equal in every way. But at other times, private moments Sam thought Dean didn't catch, Sam was still the hurt, frightened little boy he'd never got the chance to be with his father. Dean didn't want that little boy to force himself into something he'd regret, trying to grow up before he was ready for it.

"Dean, you with me?" Dean blinked at Sam's voice, meeting eyes that still held a hint of hurt. Of rejection. God, Dean wished he could take that day in the car back. He'd never meant to turn Sam away like that, never meant for him to think he wasn't _wanted_.

"Yeah, I'm with you, Sammy." Dean whispered, nodding.

A loud groan, coming from the floor above them, broke the silence. Sam's head snapped around like a gundog on the trail. With a quick glance back to check Dean was still following, the kid started climbing the stairs.

Another groan, this one longer, more drawn out. It wasn't pain their victim was feeling, that was for sure. Dean bit his lip. Marissa Greenlaw had tearfully admitted to taking sleeping pills once she'd realised nothing could be done for her son while he was asleep; she had to get up early, she'd justified, she couldn't sleep through the noise he made. While it made their job a whole lot easier, it still pissed Dean off. Her son was being attacked by a demon in the room next to hers, and she drowned herself in pills so she could sleep through it. Even though she didn't have any idea what was causing the dreams, it was still a sign of the wilful ignorance 'normal' people so often retreated behind. How Dean ever thought he wanted to be one of them, he didn't know. He wondered if Sam felt the same way, but it hadn't seemed like a good time to ask, not with the kid shooting him narrow-eyed looks every time he tried to crack a joke.

They slipped past the mother's closed bedroom door, silent as ghosts in the night. The boy's door was the next one along. Dean would've been able to tell even if Marissa hadn't led them up to it earlier; the groans had given way to breathy panting, but the sounds were still loud enough to fill the dead air around them. Sam paused by the door, meeting Dean's eyes with an inscrutable look. "You ready?"

Dean forced a cocky grin to his lips. "Damn right I am. Let's kick the bitch back to hell."

Something like a smile passed over Sam's mouth, gone before Dean could get a proper look, but the kid was opening the door and he had other things to worry about.

On the bed, Marissa Greenlaw's son writhed in tortured ecstasy, the bed sheets a crumpled pile on the floor. Sweat caught the dim light cast from the street outside the window, glistening over every inch of the boy's body like morning frost. He was wearing thin boxers, the front dark and sticking to his crotch. His face was pale, drained of life, black rings like bruises around his eyes. For a bizarre second, Dean was seeing Sam in the boy's place, Sam on the night Dean first saw who he really was, a whip-thin boy with a knife in his hand and a plum-coloured bruise encircling one eye, facing off against a werewolf with no fear in his face. Sam hadn't been much older in years than this boy was, but he'd lived hard and fast, cold cruel experience beating the innocence out of him before it ever had a chance to take hold. Dean blinked hard and the illusion faded.

"I'll start the exorcism, you…try and hold it down." Sam said, his forehead furrowing. Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes; how the hell did Sam expect him to hold down something that was _incorporeal_?

But Sam was already flicking throughhis journal, stopping on a scribbled page of Latin. Probably best if the kid did the actual reading anyway – Sam invited Dean to leave his own notes in the journal, but he'd taken one look at that thing and tossed it back in the duffle, because Sam may be a compulsive neat-freak about most things, but the journal didn't appear to be one of them. The kid had some mysterious system, filing away hunts and notes and meandering thoughts in an order than only made sense to him, all written in wildly scrawling handwriting.

As soon as Sam opened his mouth, Dean could feel the shift in the air, like a searchlight being turned on them. The unconscious boy on the bed let out a soft whimper, his face half-turned into a pillow, the tendons in his neck straining against the thin barrier of skin. Then they went lax, and Dean sucked in a breath as he raised the bottle of holy water.

Sam glanced over, beginning to read. "_In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti_-" He was cut off abruptly, a shriek like hurricane winds filling the small room. Dean winced, ducking down instinctively like he could shelter from the noise and bringing his hands to shield his head.

It was a mistake.

As soon as his weapons were lowered, a punch of air hit him dead in the stomach, knocking him backwards. He scrabbled to keep hold of the holy water, the shotgun, but something seized his wrists before he could bring them to bear.

He could see Sam's face from his prone position on the floor, the wide eyes and the fear in every muscle of the kid's body. Sam took an instinctive step forward, then jerked back again, his mouth pulling into a tight line. He swallowed visibly, pulling his gaze back to the open book in his hands. Dean would have given him a grin and a thumbs-up if he was in any state to be thinking about it.

Unfortunately, rational thought was the very last thing Dean was capable of right then, because – and it almost made him want to roll his eyes – there was a _succubus _sitting in his _lap_. A demon that fed off sex, and after the last two years, Dean had a _lot _of sex to give.

His eyes rolled back into his head and his body arched off the floor without his permission, because whatever that _thing _was doing to him, it felt _so damned good_. The demon forced pictures into his mind, pictures of the girls he'd made it with, some of them clear as day, others only vaguest snatches of long blonde hair or dark eyes. This demon felt like every one of them, all at once, all rolled up into one explosive orgasm, and it was building in him almost too fast. Fingers touched him, all over, spreading heat and zigzags of sensation through his veins, making him shiver in pure animalistic want. His own hands were groping at thin air, searching insensibly for soft skin to touch, to stroke and caress. Gasping, he threw his head back, bucking up against nothing, every piece of him begging for release.

"_Dean!"_ The voice called to him through a haze of pleasure, distant and unreal. He ignored it, trying to lose himself in the bliss of the moment.

A splash of wet landed on his belly, soaking through his shirt. It made him jerk upright, blinking wildly; cold, jarring. The howl that followed it was like the sound a speared animal might make, absolute agony and anger. The fingers on his skin, so _goodroughfilthy _a second before, became talons of steel, digging into his chest and ripping through his shirt. He yelped, a confusion of pain and lingering pleasure making everything blurry around him.

"Dean, get down!" He followed the order on autopilot, years of ingrained training controlling his body. A good thing; there was a loud _boom_, and then smatters of rock salt showered his face and neck where the shot exploded in the wall overhead.

There was a sucking sensation, like all the air in the room was being drawn to one spot, and then, with a final desolate shriek, everything fell silent. No weight on his lap, no fingers touching him. He blinked stupidly for a second, trying to right everything that had fallen out of place in his mind. His fingers prodded at his chest, but there was no blood, no marks, only a lingering throb. John Winchester's voice echoed in his head; _incorporeal demons don't always leave wounds_.

"C'mon, we gotta go." A hand was tugging on his arm, and he looked up with a frown.

Sam was kneeling beside him, his eyes hidden beneath a curtain of long hair. Tucked under his arm was the journal and the shotgun Dean had dropped earlier, the flask of holy water clutched awkwardly in his hand.

"S-sam?"

"Yeah, c'mon, man. We gotta-"

Before Sam could finish his sentence, a loud scream filled the eerie silence left in the succubus's wake. Dean looked up to see Marissa Greenlaw in the doorway of the room, a robe hastily thrown around her pale purple nightdress. She was looking at the still form of her son, and then her eyes flicked over to Sam and Dean, the shotgun under Sam's arm. She screamed again.

"Come _on_!" Sam said, urgently. This time Dean obeyed, dragging himself to his feet and feeling like every muscle in his body had been turned to sand. His dick was still throbbing in his pants, and distantly he took note of it, dismissed it again for a better time.

"Rick! What have you done- _Rick_!" The woman rushed to her son's side, her gaze darting over to them as she started to shake the boy.

"He's fine, Mrs Greenlaw. He's gonna be fine. I'm sorry for intruding like this, we'll show ourselves out." Sam spoke like he had every right to be standing in a sixteen year old boy's room at three in the morning, holding a shotgun and a bottle of holy water. It seemed to throw the woman off and she didn't attempt to stop them when Sam propelled Dean towards the door.

Dean stumbled through the house, letting Sam's hand on his arm guide him. His head felt muzzy like it was caught up in spider's webs, and he felt as if he could sleep for a year.

Sam manhandled Dean into the passenger seat of the Impala, parked outside of the house. Dean tried to put up some kind of protest – he might be tired but he wasn't _dying_, he could drive perfectly well, thank you – except as soon as his body hit the leather seat, he was out for the count.

*****

After what seemed like days of truly _filthy _dreams – seriously, even he couldn't have thought up half of what went through his unconscious mind, and he had broad experience of filthy – Dean came to, his crotch uncomfortably damp and chafing, and Sam's ungentle touch prying him from the passenger seat.

His brain tuned into the dark muttering Sam seemed unable to hold back as he wrangled Dean's limp arms around his neck. "…_last _time I take you anywhere, man, seriously, and you think you're getting sex after this, like, _ever again_? Because if this is what it does to you, I'd really prefer it if you suffered…"

Dean opened his mouth, an apology on the tip of his tongue. What rolled out was something completely different, and it kind of made him wish for unconsciousness again. "Aw, don' be like 'at, S'mmy. S'just, she w's _really hot_."

Sam froze, his body stiffening. Then he lifted one hand, used it to tilt Dean's heavy head back so their eyes could meet and Dean could feel the full impact of Sam's unimpressed expression. A beat. Then; "You're an idiot, Dean." The hand dropped away and Dean's head fell back to its resting place on Sam's shoulder. Dean closed his eyes, resisting the strong urge to rub his face in Sam's jacket. Yeah, he really was an idiot.

Sam lugged him towards…hey, where were they? Dean lifted his head with considerable effort, a flickering neon sign passing through his line of sight. _The Holiday Motel_. Bright smiley faces in the o, d and a of _Holiday_. Huh.

"Happy place." Dean mumbled, trying to walk without Sam's assistance and failing miserably.

"Yeah, I'm feeling the joy." Sam didn't look at him as he hauled him back, taking most of Dean's weight on his shoulder. Wow, the kid got strong somewhere along the way. Dean peeked through his eyelashes at Sam's profile. His jaw was set firm, gaze pinned on the red door they were approaching.

He leaned Dean against the wall while he fitted the key to the lock, and Dean watched his big hands as they did a dance with the keychain, bags and Dean's body, sliding to the floor without his permission before Sam caught him. Kid really had got big sometime between now and…then. Broad shoulders, long taut muscles forming under what used to be lanky skin-and-bone. The angles of his face had changed too, slightly. He'd never had the puppy-fat cheeks of most kids – too much time with his father had stolen that, turned it into shadowed eyes and sharp gauntness – but even as short a time ago as Lawrence and Missouri and the demon, Sam had still been a noticeable _teenager_, something undeniably young in the smooth unlined skin of his now that kidlike face was…harder, somehow. Gaining the depth, the wear, that his eyes had always held but his face had never shown. Grown up. Dean frowned, staring at Sam like he'd just met him.

Sam caught him in his examination, eyebrows raising. "Something on my face?"

"When'd you get t'be a grown up?" Dean said, words slurring around the edges.

Sam cocked his head, bemused. Instead of answering, he tugged Dean upright again and helped him into the room, obviously dismissing the question.

Dean was suddenly and unceremoniously tossed onto the nearest bed. He thought about complaining, but it was so soft and so warm. He could hear the sounds of Sam dropping the bags, wandering around the room, a clicking noise followed by a muffled swear. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but his eyes were sliding closed of their own accord, and he let himself drift off into sleep again.

*****

Dean woke up nearly twenty four hours later feeling like he'd slept for a year, his muscles relaxed and easy, his bones heavy. Everything felt good and muted, and he was just thinking that maybe getting attacked by a succubus was the best thing ever if it meant he got a full night's sleep, when he lifted his head to see…

"Sam? Why are there candles everywhere?"

Everywhere was an understatement. There were candles on every available surface of the room, on the table, the dresser, the little shelves holding…sparkly seashells? Even on top of the goddamned _TV_, and this was getting freaky. Maybe it wasn't just him that'd been hit by that succubus.

Sam's head appeared in his line of vision, sudden and disturbingly close. Dean grunted and rolled off the bed, landing on the floor.

"Power's out. The motel owner gave me these." Sam looked like he was struggling to keep a straight face from his position on the bed Dean had just fallen off of. Dean scowled, rubbing at his bruised backside. Restful night of sleep, _gone_.

"So you lit _all of them_?"

"I was reading." Sam held up a big thick hardback to prove his point. "I prefer to read without risking eyestrain, if it's all the same to you."

Dean pushed himself to his feet, glaring at the arrangement of candles on the bedside table. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sam rolling his own eyes. "Don't worry, Dean, I wasn't planning on seducing you. I think you've had enough of that for one night."

Dean felt his face heat up. "Uh, yeah, about that. I, uh, I'm sorry. For, y'know, gettin' myself hit by her. I shoulda been more careful."

Sam turned a page in his book, slow and deliberate. "It's fine, Dean. I shouldn't have expected you to resist…what did you call it? A _really hot _demon. That was clearly asking too much of you."

"Ah, Sam…" Dean scratched at the back of his neck, searching for the right words. "Look, it wasn't…you know I didn't mean it like that. I mean, you and me, we're… And that wasn't… Well, y'know."

Sam laughed, bitter and cutting. "Wow, thanks, man. All better now." He shut the book with a loud snap, placing it on the table beside him. "I'm gonna go to bed. I'm tired, _y'know_, 'cause I stayed up all day and half the night making sure you didn't die of dehydration from all the _bodily fluids _you were losing. Must've really been some hot demon." He wrenched the bedcovers up, punching at the flat motel pillows with knuckles that were white from stress and throwing himself down, his back firmly to Dean.

Dean pursed his lips. "Sam. C'mon."

Sam sat up again, his head snapping towards Dean. "_What_? What do you want me to say, Dean? I'm pissed at you, and to be honest, I think I have every right to be."

"Are you kidding me?" Dean threw his hands up. "You're _jealous_, of a _demon_. Okay, I said it was hot while I was _stoned out of my head_. Of course it was hot, it was a _sex demon_, it's entire existence is dedicated to being hot!"

"That's not what I'm mad about, Dean!" Sam threw the covers back, lunging to his feet and stalking towards Dean. "You keep going on about how Gareth attackedme, how he tried to rape me, but did you ever think that maybe this demon did the same thing to you, and to god knows how many other guys out there?"

A breath caught in Dean's throat and he reeled back, his arm bumping the dresser and making the candlelight flicker alarmingly. "Sam…"

"Look, I get it, okay? It wasn't the same thing. It didn't…it wasn't like _that_. But I…" He broke off, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard, his gaze set on the floor by Dean's feet. "Watching something touching you and I couldn't stop it-"

"Aw, Christ Sammy…" Dean's head dropped forward, his thoughts landing unwillingly on the memory of that night, the night he'd found Sam pinned against a wall, Gareth with his hands all over him like he actually thought Sam was his property. He remembered how it had felt to see that, to know he'd been able to stop the worst of it, but not _all _of it.

"I just…" Sam's face was screwed up, his frustration evident in the grit of his teeth, the sharp terse movement of his hand through his hair. He was silent for a moment, mouth working without words. And then, shockingly, he let out a bitter laugh. "I guess I am jealous. But not…not how you're thinking, Dean." He met Dean's eyes tentatively, then looked away again. "I know that you'd never, that you didn't…_ask _for that, but. But how come it happens to you, and you're allowed to just…get over it, like it was just another job? How come I'm stuck down with all this- this _shit_, while you can just shrug it off?"

"Hey, hey. Like you said, it's not the same thing, Sammy." Dean crossed the room, wrapping Sam in a one-armed hug without giving him a chance to protest. "What happened to you was…_god_, Sam, it's a completely different situation." Sam made a noise in the back of his throat, resisting Dean's hug for a second before giving in, turning to burrow his face in the soft cloth of Dean's shirt collar. "It's not…I don't think it's so much the physical thing. It's the mental scars you gotta deal with, kiddo. And you _are_, Sam, you're doing so well."

"Then why don't you want me?" Sam's words were muffled, spoken into Dean's shoulder like maybe he wasn't supposed to hear them at all.

"Sam." Dean brushed Sam's hair away from his face, using a gentle hand to lift his chin. Sam blushed, tried to pull away, but Dean caught him tight around the waist and kept him there. "Sam, listen to me. I want you- _God_, I want you so bad. But I'm scared too, kiddo. This…it's a big deal."

"You're right."

Dean blinked. "Huh?"

"I said, you're right." Sam spoke calmly, no hint of the smothered anguish in his voice now. He'd reined it all in, and this was another thing Dean could only remember Sam doing when he was pushed into it, pushed into shutting down. New grown-up Sam could apparently switch it on and off at will. It kind of made Dean's heart race when Sam pulled himself to his full height, candlelight fluttering over his cheeks and the long smooth stretch of his neck like lover's kisses. The expression on Sam's face was part-fear, part-longing, and no matter how much older he'd gotten he still did that thing where he tried to hide behind his hair. It made Dean's mouth quirk in an uncertain smile.

"You're admitting I'm right about waiting? Wow, never thought the day would come when you'd concede a fight, man."

Sam shook his head, his hair falling away from his eyes. "No, I'm admitting you're right about it being a big deal. You're definitely, one-hundred per cent _not _right about waiting."

"Huh?"

"Dean, how much time's gonna have to pass before you think it's okay? One year? Two? Five? I'm _never _gonna be 'better'. It happened, and I'm always gonna remember it, and it's never gonna be something I look back on with no feelings at all." Dean watched as the lines deepened around the corners of Sam's mouth like he was tasting something nasty. "But I…I don't think that should stop me moving on. I _want _to move on, man. I want you to help me move on."

A shiver passed down Dean's spine, travelling along his nerves, playing at his fingers and toes like static sparks. "Sam, I-I dunno, man…"

"Please, Dean?" Sam looked at him, head cocked slightly and eyes wide.

It occurred to Dean that maybe his trepidation about taking that final, momentous step, maybe it wasn't entirely based on fear for _Sam_. He'd slept with a lot of women, some of them he'd liked, some of them he'd even thought he might be able to fall in love with, some of them only because they'd been there when he had an itch that needed scratching. None of them had been Sam. None of his past sexual conquests, not even losing his own virginity, had meant as much to him as this relationship he had with Sam. What if sex changed that? What if, once they'd done it, once they'd marked that last item off the list, what if that was _it_? List completed, relationship taken as far as it would go.

He'd lost his virginity at fifteen to a girl with dirty blonde hair and a scab on the bridge of her nose where her older brother had pushed her off her bike. Her name had been Alice and she'd been in his class at school, and their relationship had consisted of holding hands in the corridors, pressing messy quick kisses into each others mouths by the school gates at the end of the day. On the last day of school, Alice had taken him out to an old treehouse in the woods behind her house, crying because her parents were making her go to Pittsburg for the summer to visit her grandparents. He'd tried clumsily to comfort her, almost poking her in the eye as he attempted to wipe away her tears with his thumb, imitating a guy he'd seen on a TV programme. Wet kisses turned into roaming hands, fifteen year-old Dean unable to resist the lure of hidden flesh trapped behind bras and panties. She'd stolen a condom off her brother, and she pressed it into his hot little hands with a wobbly tear-filled smile.

Dean thought she hung the moon for two weeks after that day, moping around the rented apartment and staring soulfully out of windows until his dad had had enough and told him to pack his bags, they were going to Bobby Singer's. At Bobby's, the pretty nineteen year-old that worked the tills at the convenience store had pushed Alice out of his mind completely.

Shaking his head, Dean met Sam's steady gaze with effort. "Sam, I don't want to rush you."

The kid – the _man_ – pushed forward with a forcefulness that surprised Dean, one hand wrapping around the back of his neck, stroking the soft fuzz of shaven hair there. "It's okay, Dean. I promise. _We're _okay." Sam leaned down until their foreheads were pressed together, their scents mixing to become something Dean was intimately familiar with. He closed his eyes, tilted his head up to search out Sam's mouth with his own. They met in a soft chaste kiss that deepened, lips parting and tongues slipping out to play.

Dean's head was spinning, and it took him a moment to realise that it was partially because Sam had turned his around, backing him slowly towards the bed. His hand tightened on Sam's arm, _stop, slow down_, but Sam just stroked the back of his neck with a thumb, soothing him. His heart was pounding like a jackrabbit, and Sam had to feel it, out of time and twice as fast as the strong pump of his own, steady as a metronome.

Sam pulled away, giving him an inch of breathing room. "Dean?"

He tried to say he was okay, tried to reassure Sam, except Sam wasn't the one who needed reassuring, and oh god, how was he only _now _figuring this out?

"Shhh. We don't have to." Sam murmured, the words brushing Dean's wet lips. Dean squeezed his eyes shut. That was _his _line, goddamnit, he was the older one, the more experienced one.

"Sam…"

"It's just us, Dean. You and me. For good, y'know?" He opened his eyes, seeing the tiny half-grin pulling at Sam's lip.

Just them. Just them, like it had been for _years _now. Him and Sam, a package deal. His dad called Sam almost as much as he called Dean, just to check in, swap wildly exaggerated hunting stories like the male equivalent of gossip. Caleb invited them to his shack by the Mississippi river for New Year's and no one raised an eyebrow when they said goodnight and collapsed under the covers of the same air-mattress. Hunters they met on their journey talked about them in the same breath, _SamandDean_, the two child hunting prodigies together in their big black car. _Them_.

Dean chuffed a laugh out, shaky like Alice must have felt, that day so many years ago in her childhood treehouse. "We're doin' this, then?" Sam's face was blank for a moment, and then he _beamed_, big and happy and sloppy-silly like Dean had just told him it was Christmas day. Dean cuffed him gently around the head, poking at a ticklish spot on his side. "Get on the goddamn bed then, kiddo, don't think we wanna attempt it freestyle just yet."

Sam laughed – no, Sam _giggled_, like a _girl_, but Dean didn't think he'd appreciate it being brought up right now – and sprawled out across the bed, arms spread, taking up the entire king-size mattress. With a deep breath, Dean pushed away the last doubts lingering like spider's webs around his head and crawled on top of him, knees pinning him on either side of his waist. Dean caught his weight on his hands, and then he was kneeling over Sam, bracketing Sam's head with his forearms as he leaned in for another kiss. Sam let himself be kissed for a long second, passive on his back, his hands blindly searching through the bedcovers until they were intertwined with Dean's. Then without warning he was flipping Dean over, rolling with him until they were tangled together on their sides, hands still joined and playing on Sam's hip, hot breathy kisses exchanged. Dean peeked at Sam through half-lidded eyes, saw Sam watching him the same way and smiled, untangling his hand to bring it up and stroke the side of Sam's head.

Even if Sam hadn't intended it as a seduction, the candles were doing a pretty good job of setting the mood. Dean kind of wanted to laugh, because _no way _had he ever thought he'd be taking Sam's virginity in a room decorated with sparkly seashells and flickering candlelight, but it did lend a romantic touch to the occasion, if you were into that sort of thing. And then Dean's eye caught on a collection of starfish and seahorses stuck to the mirror by the bathroom door. At the centre of the tableau was a giant blue-painted starfish. Someone had drawn a smiley face on the dried-out sea creature in purple glitterpen. Maybe not _all _that romantic, then.

Sam didn't seem to be bothered at the prospect of making love surrounded by souvenirs of some old lady's trip to the beach, though, so Dean put it out of his mind, focusing on the way Sam's nose crinkled when he concentrated. His hand was on Dean's shirt, like he couldn't quite work up the courage to start unbuttoning it. Dean took a deep breath, making the decision for him by tugging it off over his head.

Sam's eyes travelled down Dean's bare torso, wide and awed, as if he hadn't seen Dean naked or near-naked a million times in the past few years. It made heat rise in Dean's cheeks. "Hey, c'mon, your turn now. Unless this is a one-man show?" The words threw him back to the first time they'd tried this, made him grin sheepishly. From the look on Sam's face he was thinking the same thing, struggling not to laugh as he pulled his tee shirt off.

Then they were both bare-chested, lying together like they'd done so many nights before. Sam took the initiative, unbuttoning his jeans and wriggling out of them, his gaze darting up at Dean's face as he did it. Watching Dean watch him.

As soon as Sam had kicked his jeans off, Dean rolled over to him, catching his lips in another kiss. His hand found the smooth warm skin of Sam's shoulder, starting its own meandering path downwards over the tightly muscled chest. Sam liked it if the moan that escaped his mouth was any indication, pushing forward into the petting and throwing a leg over Dean's jean-clad hip, bringing their bodies into closer contact. Dean's fingers found a peaked nipple, grazing it gently at first. The sensation made Sam shiver in his arms, and Dean did it again, harder, feeling the tiny nub stiffen further. He pulled back a little, nudging Sam's cheek with the tip of his nose. "Good?"

Sam nodded, flushed from the chest up. "Uh-huh."

Kissing him again, Dean focused more attention on that nipple, circling it with a barely-there touch that had Sam's back arching into it, wordless begging for more.

So intent on finding ways to make Sam writhe, Dean was shocked into a gasp when Sam's fingers brushed his hardening dick as they undid the zipper of his jeans.

Sam's hand froze at the sound. "Is…is this okay?"

"Yeah." Dean said on a breath. "Yeah, it's okay, Sammy."

Sam's hand moved again, tentative at first and then surer. Dean helped, lifting his hips and pushing the jeans away. His boxers slipped down with them, revealing an inch of pubic hair above the waistband.

Dean was kind of expecting Sam to go straight for the prize now it was on show – hell, if he was a virginal eighteen year old, he'd be humping someone's leg by this point – so it was startling when Sam deflected entirely, running his hand up Dean's bare side and making him shiver. "I, uh, put the _stuff _in the dresser drawer." He said, chewing on his lower lip as he looked up at Dean through his eyelashes. Dean thought about teasing, _no seduction my ass_, but Sam was just too adorable to make fun of right then.

"So, uh, how did you-" Dean made a vague gesture in the air with his hand, turning it into a caress at the last minute. "How did you want to do…it?" Sam opened his mouth, blushed hotly and shut it again, his face creasing like he was trying to hold back childish giggles. Dean rolled his eyes, shoving at his shoulder. "Shut up."

"Hey, if you can't say it…"

His own words played back to him, years old now, and Dean grinned, leaning in close to Sam's ear and parroting Sam's response back to him. "Sex. Fucking. My dick, your ass. Or your dick, my ass, whatever. You choose." He shrugged, feeling that flush make a return. "That's…probably one of those things we should've discussed."

Sam kissed him brief and soft-quick, his gaze focused on his hand stroking down Dean's arm. "Uh, I kinda thought it would be you, first. In me. 'Cause, y'know, you've done it before, and I haven't, so…"

Dean butted his forehead gently against Sam's. "Hey. Haven't done _this _before. Not with a guy, anyway. S'all new to me too, kiddo."

"Guess we'll figure it out, then." Sam smiled at him, shy and sweet.

"Guess so." Dean smiled back, leaning in for another long slow kiss.

It was good, the kissing, and Dean focused on it, focused on the way Sam's mouth felt under his, the way his lips parted to let out a tiny puff of air when Dean licked at the corner of his mouth. Bare chest to bare chest and thin, skin warmed boxers creating a barrier between their crotches that still let Dean feel Sam's hot hard cock, let Sam feel his. It wasn't new; they'd done this before, worked up to this before Dean held up a hand and said _stop_, this far and no further. Knowing that he could still do that, knowing that Sam would accept it if he did made Dean moan, lips working their way down Sam's jaw, sucking at his throat.

Sam looked defiled already, wanton. He'd rolled onto his back again, head tilted into the pillow to allow Dean easy access to the stretch of his neck. His chest was heaving, a dampness to the skin around his armpits and at the crook of his elbows. Not sweating, not yet, but flushed and ready. Dean leaned over, licked a long slow stripe from the inside of Sam's wrist to the tangling of hair under his arm. When he looked up, Sam was watching him, his eyes heavy and dark and amazed. Dean smiled, swallowing the taste of Sam and going back for more.

Wriggling down Sam's body, Dean sucked hot kisses into the thin skin of Sam's belly, wondering at the way the muscles contracted under his touch, flexing and rippling like waves. He paused at Sam's belly button, his hands resting on the jut of hipbones covered by cloth. Sam's face was a picture, his forehead scrunched up like he was in pain, but the hand stroking Dean's jaw urged him on. With a deep breath, Dean slipped his thumbs under the elastic waistband of Sam's boxers, sliding them down an inch, more. The smell of _Sam _was stronger, concentrated in the hidden vee of his legs, and Dean closed his eyes, bending his head to inhale it.

Before he could over-think this, he pulled the boxers down.

Sam's cock was long and elegantly curved, just like the rest of him. It lay against his belly, the head smearing wet precome against the skin. Dean hesitated – that was a _cock_, and it didn't belong to him, and he was supposed to touch it, do things with it that he'd never ever thought about before he met Sam. He was thinking about them now, though. Hell, he didn't know how he'd gone this long _not _thinking about them.

Sam chose that moment to grip Dean's shoulders and throw him off, reversing their positions. For a second Dean panicked; had he done something wrong? Was Sam freaking out? But Sam's expression calmed his fears, lust and want the only things in his eyes. Kicking off his boxers, Sam pressed his body on top of Dean's, completely naked now as he kissed his own meandering path over Dean's collarbones. He copied Dean's move, sliding sinuous down the length of Dean's body, hooking his fingers in Dean's boxers. It made Dean groan, rolling his head on the pillow, because Sam always had been a fast learner and goddamn if he didn't give this the same single-minded attention as he did working on a job.

Sam's breath was hot and moist, brushing over the sticky-tacky head of his own cock and making it jerk against his stomach. Dean shut his eyes, sensation and emotion making his head spin, overwhelming.

His eyes snapped open a second later, his mouth wide in a silent scream, every muscle in his body jolting as something rough and wet ran across the slit of his dick. When he looked down he almost couldn't believe it, but Sam was there, his head cocked and his forehead furrowed in concentration as he licked at it, slowly, like he was trying to figure out whether it tasted good. "Holy _fuck_, Sam." He said, the words almost soundless.

Sam looked up at him and _smiled_, the little bastard, all sheepish and coy. "Just looking." Dean's head flopped back against the pillow, swimming crazily, and he wanted to protest because Sam's words didn't even make _sense_, he was clearly _not _just looking, but then that clever tongue swiped along the tiny bump of nerves on the underside of his cock and all he could do was whimper.

Sam crawled back up Dean's body, legs outside Dean's, and they both groaned when he lowered himself to lie on top of Dean. God, it felt like Sam was burning up, so tight and good against him, and Dean's hands moved by themselves, stroking broad and rough up and down Sam's bare back. It pressed Sam into him, made him whimper and hide his face in Dean's throat, his hips making tiny spasmodic jerks against Dean's.

One of his hands brushed Sam's tailbone, fingers pausing there before sneaking down further. The position he was lying in across Dean's legs meant Sam's ass was spread, and it was easy as anything to slip a fingertip along that hot crease. Sam squeaked as he did it, his hips working faster against Dean. His hole was a tight little knot, and Dean took a moment to stroke over it, barely-there touches that had Sam gasping and mouthing wetly at his shoulder. It was heady, having the power to turn Sam into this, and Dean couldn't help smiling, his finger still teasing, making Sam rut furiously against him.

It took him a second to realise Sam's gasps had turned into snatches of words; "_Dean…Dean…god…pl-please…more…hard-harder, please…_"

He shushed Sam, kissing the side of his neck, his hair. "Shh, hey, it's okay, I'll get you there, Sammy, it's okay."

Sam lifted his head, staring at Dean with pupils so blown they swallowed the hazel-green of his eyes. His lips were red and wet, bitten raw, and a rush of blood lit up his cheeks from within. He lifted a trembling hand, groping across the mattress. "The…the stuff…"

"Okay, okay." Dean stroked Sam's arm, gentling him like he would a nervous horse before reaching over to the drawer.

Sam really had prepared, the tube of lubricant unwrapped and ready to go, condoms split into their individual foil packets. Dean spared a grin at Sam's anal-retentiveness, and then got distracted by the thought of Sam's _other _anal attributes. He dropped the lube on the mattress beside their bodies, his finger returning to Sam's hole, touching the clenching ring of muscle. A sudden grip of nerves seized him; he was supposed to fit in _there_? How the hell was that ever going to be possible, how the hell was he ever going to do it without hurting Sam?

Sam didn't seem to share his concerns. His body writhed on top of Dean, unselfconscious in its need for touch, for pleasure. When Dean didn't pick up the lube, he went for it himself, flicking the cap with unsteady fingers and squirting the runny stuff all over the mattress before Dean could cover his hand, gently take it off him. "Sam, are you sure about this?" He asked, stroking Sam's hair back from his face to make sure the other man was actually listening to him. "We don't have to do _everything _now. I can just…get you off, if you wanted, just like this."

Sam's face was a picture of indignation, like Dean had deeply offended him. "Dean…you don't fuck me now, I'm gonna _explode_."

Dean bit his lip, staring at the lube in his hand. "Sammy, it's…it's gonna hurt."

"It doesn't matter." Sam pressed into him clumsily, his lips coaxing Dean's into a response. "Want you. Want it, please, please."

*****

Sam wasn't kidding when he said he might explode if Dean didn't fuck him. God, he was already harder and needier than he could ever remember being in his life, and the fact that it was _Dean _doing this to him, Dean playing his body and making him wriggle and gasp and throb in the best possible way, turned his mind inside out.

The cool drizzle of lube along the crack of his ass made him start, the shock of sensation so different from every other buzz running through him it was almost unrecognisable. But it was quickly followed by Dean's finger, slipping and sliding, rubbing the slippery into that secret crevice. He was acutely aware of that dot of pressure, touching him in places he'd never been touched by another person. It was all for Dean, all for _them_, and he wanted to scream with how _glad _he was. Everything in his life, leading up to this moment, and it was all worth it, every second of torture and torment, because he got _this_.

Dean was right though, it was a _huge _fucking deal, and even though he couldn't remember anything feeling this good before, the pleasure was laced with trepidation, because Dean's dick? Was not small. The sheer logistics of what they were about to do made his breath catch, and for a second he wondered if it was even _possible_, fitting _that _in _there_.

Dean's sly fingertip found the centre of him, circling the edge again and again. And it felt good – actually it felt fucking _great_ – but what made Sam's hesitation disappear was the memory of Dean's words, his face, so turned on but yet still offering to wait if it was what Sam wanted. Dean would stop if Sam asked him to, and that made all the difference.

The finger against his hole disappeared for a second, and Sam wanted to beg for it back, but then a wet splat of lube landed right _there_, and Dean's finger was back, rubbing gently at him, pressing that cool gooey liquid into him. More lube, and Sam was getting impatient for more, when without warning the very tip of Dean's finger slipped inside him.

Supernovas bloomed behind his tightly closed eyes, every muscle locking up, seizing. He felt like he might vibrate apart, split at the seams, his bones turned to jelly and foam. His cock lurched, brushed against Dean's belly, and that was all it took. He was coming so hard he thought he'd _actually _exploded, and then Dean's finger slid _right the way in_, he could feel every bump and groove, the knobs of his knuckles swallowed up by Sam's body. Dean made a surprised noise, instinctively twisting the finger to pull out, and it was too much, too many sensations, stimulation overload making his thoughts leak out his ears.

He was aware, vaguely, that there were sounds coming from his mouth. His throat felt raw like he'd been screaming for hours on end, and despite the heaviness of his muscles his hips were still pumping, pumping like his body just couldn't get enough.

Oh god, what was Dean doing to him?

"Sam? Sam, do you – oh, _fuck _– d'you want me to stop?" Dean groaned, and Sam could feel the older man's body twisting under his, searching out stimulation even as he tried to pull away.

He leaned up, blindly finding Dean's mouth and pressing a sweaty kiss to it. "No, no, k-keep going, Dean, keep…" His voice tapered off, because even though he'd only just come, his dick was stiffening again, almost painful but oh so good.

"Here, lemme…" Dean started to push Sam up, away from the heat of his body. Sam made a wordless sound of protest, hands latching onto whatever skin they could find. That finger was still in his ass though, Sam could feel it twitching and brushing sparks across his sensitive nerves even though Dean was clearly trying not to move it. Then Dean's other hand moved down, splayed against his lower back and urging him to shift. It took Sam a second to realise that Dean wanted him to sit up, to move up the bed so that Dean could lean back against the headboard, Sam straddling his lap.

With an awkward confusion of limbs they got there, and Sam could suddenly see the appeal of this position. Dean's hard cock was right _there_ brushing against his own, while Dean's hand cupped the back of his thigh, finger buried to the hilt inside him. It gave Sam control, meant he could set the pace, escape easily if he needed to, and it was so like Dean to do that for him that he almost started crying there and then.

Except Dean distracted him from his thoughts by pulling his forefinger almost all the way out of Sam's ass, pushing it back in again joined with his middle finger. Sam's eyes threatened to roll all the way back into his head.

He'd tried two of his own fingers, but they hadn't felt anything like this, not so big, not so _good_. There was an ache building around his hole, and he knew he'd probably be sore there for a few days, but it was forgotten when Dean's tentative explorations found something inside him that made him yelp, sitting down hard on Dean's hand.

"Sam?" Dean stilled instantly, his eyes wide and worried. "Did I hurt you?"

Sam shook his head hard, suddenly grateful that he was already sprawled across Dean's chest, because he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to sit upright without assistance. "No…was good…"

Dean used his free hand to guide Sam into a kiss, whispering against his mouth. "Okay, you- you ready, or d'you need more…" The fingers in his ass moved again, parting like scissors and pushing Sam's hole open from the inside.

Sam answered by snatching up the condom, trying to rip it open with hands that felt like they were wearing thick gloves. Dean chuckled breathlessly in his ear. "Here, gimme. You worry about your ass, I'll worry about my cock."

"Can do that." Sam mumbled, grinning sloppily as he rolled his hips onto Dean's hand.

As it turned out, all Dean's experience didn't count for much when it came to putting condoms on one-handed, and after several failed attempts Sam snorted into his shoulder and reached a hand down to help.

As soon as his fingers wrapped around the solid length of Dean's dick, the older man let out a groan like he was dying. Sam froze, peeking up at his face. Dean's head was thrown back against the wall, his eyes closed as he tried to reign in his wild breathing. "You might…wanna be careful how y'handle that, Sammy." Dean gasped, his eyes still tightly shut.

"'S it bad?"

"No, but 'm gonna shoot if y'don't take your hand away."

Dean finally managed to roll the condom down, squeezing the tube of lubricant over the tip with a clenched fist. He groaned as the cool liquid trickled down his cock, and Sam couldn't resist reaching out to it, like it was a shiny new toy. Hysterical laughter rose in him for a second; it _was _a shiny new toy, and damn if he didn't want to play with it. Ignoring Dean's attempts at protest, he gripped it lightly in a fist, smoothing the lube down the latex.

"Oh, fuck, _Sam_." Dean all but keened, his head hitting the wall behind him with a dull thump, free hand wandering blindly across Sam's chest like he was trying to read him in Braille. "Fuck, feels…_fuck_…"

"Can I? Dean, can we- now?" Sam squeezed the cheeks of his ass, clenching around Dean's fingers.

The other man opened his eyes, pleasure-drunk but still searching Sam's face for any hesitation, any doubt. For a split-second Sam thought of Gareth's insidious hands, of Tristan who tried to kiss him in the men's room of some scummy bar, of his dad yanking his jeans down to his thighs and beating his bare ass with a leather belt. He thought of the abuse his body had suffered, and then he looked at Dean, straining to hold himself in despite being half-mad with need, just to make sure Sam was okay.

Sam lurched forward, somehow finding Dean's mouth with his own, kissing him messy and hot, sweat and saliva and gasping breaths joining them together. "Dean? Can we?"

"Yeah." The word ghosted over his burning cheeks, and when he managed to gather enough of his senses to take in it's meaning he thought his heart might stop. Dean kissed him again and Sam leaned into it, mindless and desperate. "Yeah, Sam. Now."

Dean's fingers slipped free of his hole, hands wrapping around his hipbones and pulling him forward, positioning him. Sam swallowed hard, his limbs feeling more uncoordinated now than they had back when he got hit by his first growth spurt, long and lanky and _in the way_.

They were doing this. They were actually doing it. The enormity of the thought made Sam dizzy, the months and years that preceded this moment, all of it unravelling in his mind. In a daze his eyes met Dean's, their gazes locking. Dean's face was red, his hair sticking up in all directions and clumped with sweat, but he smiled at Sam, beautiful and incredible and _Dean_ in a way that nothing else could ever compare to.

_Perfect_, something in Sam sighed, and his body relaxed. It was Dean and it was perfect.

*****

Dean felt the head of his cock penetrate Sam, and it was like a direct link to his heart, the pressure clamping down on his chest and making him lightheaded with lack of oxygen. A grimace passed over Sam's face before the other man could control it. Dean squeezed his hips, halting Sam's downward movement even though he thought he might die from the tease. "Hey, easy, go easy. No rush."

Sam smiled at him, his mouth pressed into a tight line. "S'okay, just…just gimme a sec."

"All the time you need, Sam." Despite his words, Dean knew he was gripping Sam's hips too hard, leaving bruises behind. He worried for a second, but Sam seemed to be focused on unclenching those muscles that were squeezing Dean's dick _so tight_, _so good_. He concentrated on watching Sam's face, the other man's skin glowing a dull bronze in the candlelight. His hair was almost black, the ends spiked with sweat and clinging to his cheekbones. He could tell the tension passed when Sam's eyes fluttered closed, his face turning up to the ceiling like he was searching for God's absolution. Dean pried one hand off Sam's hip, stroking it along the corded muscle of the other man's thigh, feeling the prickle of the fine hairs there against his palm.

"Okay." Sam said, looking down at Dean. His eyes were slitted like a cat stretched out in a patch of sunlight, blissful and content. The expression changed when Dean rocked up into him, another inch slipping past that tight little muscle. Sam's mouth became a tiny _O _of surprise, eyes widening.

They rocked together, slow and steady despite the need Dean could see growing in Sam's face, the need that was a perfect echo of his own. But working Sam open, feeling the stretch of him all around Dean's cock was its own pleasure, and he almost wanted to keep doing this, just this. Watching Sam, seeing all his unguarded emotions playing across his face, it was heady.

When he felt Sam's balls brush his belly, heavy and full even though the other man had come not ten minutes ago, Dean thought this might kill him. His head rolled back into the mashed-up pillows behind him and he fought to control his breathing.

*****

Sam was sitting in the cradle of Dean's pelvis, impaled on a cock that seemed to stretch on forever inside him. It was shorting out every thought he had, disconnected fragments floating around like fireflies in the shell of his body. He wondered how this was even possible, this thing, this _joining_. Did it always feel like this? It couldn't, Sam was sure, because how would anyone find time to do anything else? They hadn't even done anything yet and already Sam wanted to do it again.

Dean was rocking into him, stuttered movements that seemed to ripple through him like he was stroking the inside of Sam's skin.

It threatened to go on forever, a slow rocking movement that sent cascades of shivery pleasure down Sam's spine. Dean's face was screwed up in red creases, tortured and needy as his head jerked from side to side. Sam was pretty sure he didn't even realise he was doing it, lost in the moment, in the ache of it.

Suddenly struck by the urge to kiss Dean, to bring him some relief, Sam braced himself on his hands, leaning forward.

The position brought the head of Dean's cock into contact with something inside him and Sam juddered like Dean had found an _on _switch somewhere.

"_Oh…_"

Dean's eyes snapped open. "Sam?"

But Sam couldn't find the words to reassure him, couldn't find _any _words at all, every particle of him concentrated on that sparking something in him. He pushed back against Dean, making the other man groan, and they connected so hard it made Sam's arms give out.

Lying across Dean's chest, his knees up around his sides, it should have felt like the most ridiculous position ever, but Sam could only focus on Dean moving inside him, letting loose a stream of whimpers.

One of Dean's hands tangled in his hair, bringing him back, and he pulled himself together long enough to mutter, "s'okay."

That seemed to be all Dean needed to hear, the other man pushing into Sam's body again and again, groaning his pleasure as he pressed messy kisses to the side of Sam's face and neck.

With one final "_ahh_…" Dean jerked, his hips rising and locking against Sam.

Sam moaned helplessly, still working against Dean for his own release.

Gently, Dean rolled them onto their sides, his softening cock slipping free of Sam's body. His ass clenched, feeling empty without it.

"God, Sammy," Dean was looking at him with hazy-satisfied eyes, a smile on his face that looked permanently ingrained. Sam gasped when Dean's hand started to stroke him, thumb swiping the head of his dick and setting off fireworks in his vision. "That's it, c'mon, I got ya. God, Sammy, you're so fuckin' gorgeous, you have no idea." He leaned in, catching Sam's mouth in another kiss that lingered, his hand finally pulling Sam over the edge.


	5. Epilogue

Disclaimer – Not my characters, I just use them improperly

You like? You don't like? Review and tell me why! (Constructive criticism only please, if you don't like the subject, don't read the story.) If you haven't read the FMFC series yet, you'll probably want to read those first or this won't make much sense…

Epilogue

The rainstorm caught up with them in the night, pattering down on the thin roof of the motel room like thousands of tiny feet. The curtains were open and Dean watched the rivulets creasing the glass, turning it to a mosaic that caught the gaudy neon light cast by the sign outside and made it electric, yellows and blues and purples shimmering downwards in a pattern that made no sense and yet made all the sense in the world.

The candles were guttering, pools of dripping wax spilling over onto the cheap décor as if the heat they'd produced was so intense the room was melting with it.

Snuggled under the bedcovers next to him, Sam snorted loudly, his face split in a wide grin as he watched the rerun of MASH playing on the TV. Dean looked over in time to catch Frank Burns flattening an army jeep in an out-of-control tank.

The pizza they'd ordered was cold on the bedside table, but Dean reached over for another slice anyway. Sex always used to make him hungry, and apparently nothing had changed over the years. Sam giggled again, his sharp elbow poking Dean in the belly under the covers as the other man wriggled into a more comfortable position. Usually Dean would be trying to escape by now, slipping back into his clothes and flashing his Friday-night fuck a quick grin and an excuse as to why he couldn't stay the night. He wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders, pulling him in closer with a smile. Maybe some things had changed.

"Dude, you got cheese on the covers!" Sam poked him again, deliberate this time.

Dean scooped the congealing lump of greasy cheese up with a finger, grinning at Sam as he stuck it in his mouth. "Better?"

The other man made a face. "D'you know where these sheets have _been_?"

"Around your dick?"

Sam's mouth curled. "So you're eating dick-cheese?"

It was kind of gross now that Sam had mentioned it, but Dean pulled his face into a toothy grin anyway, making exaggerated _mmm _noises. "I'd eat cheese off your dick any time, Sammy."

"You're really disgusting, you know that?" Sam said conversationally, leaning over to take a bite of the pizza in Dean's hand.

"You love it."

Sam snorted around his mouthful of pizza, the corners of his mouth pulled down like he was trying not to smile. "Yeah, I'm totally in love with all your disgusting habits. Stepping in your pee when you miss the toilet is a personal favourite. Turns me on so hard."

It should feel weird, Dean thought. Talking about dicks and hardness, casually slipping sex into a conversation like it'd always been that way. The part of his brain that had censored all his dirty talk and innuendos before today as if Sam might get offended, blushing virgin that he _used to be_, seemed to have shut down for the night, maybe shut down forever. It actually felt good, better than good. Like that final barrier keeping them separate had been broken down, and now they could be themselves, be _them_.

Maybe sex really did seal the deal. The thought rolled around his head for a few seconds, semi-serious until Dean couldn't hold back any longer.

Sam watched him with a raised eyebrow and a half-grin, waiting patiently for his laughing fit to pass. "Wanna share the joke?"

"Just…thinking." Dean waved his free arm in the air, an expansive gesture taking in the whole room."

Sam waited for a second, probably hoping for more of an explanation, before rolling his eyes and settling back against Dean's arm. "Sometimes you can be weird."

"And sometimes you can be a freak. No seduction, my ass." Dean aimed a pointed look over at the used lube and condom wrapper still on the bedside table.

"It never hurts to be prepared, Dean." Sam said, in the tone of someone who'd said the same thing many times before. "You'd never go into a hunt without making sure you had enough ammo. Same logic applies."

"So, what, you put it there on the off chance you'd get lucky?" When Sam shrugged, his eyes fixed determinedly on the TV, Dean smothered a grin and pushed. "Did you do that in every motel room we've stayed in, or was this just a coincidence?"

Sam blushed.

Dean's eyes widened. "Seriously? _Every _motel room?"

"You'd've bitched if it wasn't there when you needed it." Sam said, ducking down into the covers.

"Aw, Sammy," Dean cheerfully hauled him back up the bed, planting a smacking kiss on his cheek. "It's so cute that you thought of _my _needs in such detail. You're such a considerate boyfriend."

"And you're a jackass. If this is your idea of pillow talk then we're never having sex again." Sam said, snatching the last of the pizza out of Dean's hands and stuffing it in his mouth.

"Hey, no one said my right to mock you would be revoked after sex. Free speech, baby. Don't oppress me."

"Oh, I'll do something to you, alright." Sam's voice was low, almost a growl. When Dean glanced over, his eyes were half-lidded, dark and feral, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

Dean swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. "Oh yeah? What're you gonna do to me?"

Sam leaned in close, the ends of his hair brushing Dean's cheekbones, his lips parting with a soft wet pop.

And then he let rip with an enormous pizza-scented belch, falling back to his side of the bed as he laughed, free and loud and happy.

"You little _bitch_!" Dean gagged, frantically rubbing at his face like Sam's gross cheese-breath had left stains on him. Sam couldn't speak, laughing so hard tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. Dean rolled on top of him, pinning him to the mattress and tickling him until he was gasping and wriggling like a caught fish, batting weakly at Dean's arms.

When the mood settled, Dean remained where he was, lying on top of Sam, his forehead pressed into the other man's neck. Sam's arms were limp around his waist, and the only sounds were the slowing beat of Sam's heart and the tinned laughter from the TV. "Hey, Sam?" Dean said without moving, soft and muffled against the other man's skin.

"Yeah?"

"You good?"

"Better than." Sam answered, arms squeezing Dean tight for a second. "You?"

Dean smiled, his eyes heavy. His brain was telling him it was time to sleep, and it seemed like a damned good idea, actually, everything so warm and safe around him. He rubbed his cheek against Sam's throat, feeling the bob of the other man's adam's apple as he swallowed. Dean let out a long sigh, feeling like he was breathing out the old parts of himself, taking in the new. "I'm good, Sammy." He whispered, letting his eyes slip closed. "I'm real good."


End file.
